In other news. Yesterday I was reunited with the love of my life. Diet Coke.
Thanks to the magical work of Justine Simisky and the US Postal Service, I am currently the owner of three full cans of diet coke. And one empty one. It was perhaps the happiest day of my life thus far in Paris. After a distressing day of phonetics where I learned I could not say the most basic word in the French language correctly (that would be Bonjour), I marched my sad little self to the post office to get a package I had missed even though according to the time they wrote I was totally at home when they tried to deliver it. Halfway to the post office it started pouring rain. I had no umbrella and ran. Life was sad. I got to the post office and stood in a long line with a creepy French man behind me who kept saying what I can only assume were inappropriate comments. But because I did not understand them, I was not as bothered. Then, oh but then. The lights of heaven shone down upon me. The woman at the post office loved that I tried to speak her language, and handed me a box. Justine had written the contents of the box on the outside (ya know, to make it clear she wasn't sending bombs or anthrax or anything) and one of these items said soda. Being familiar with east coast talk, I knew this soda word was code for pop and suddenly felt my one duty in life was to protect this box until I could get it to the safety of my apartment. I wrapped my arms around the box, ignoring my usual job of protecting my ipod, camera, and wallet in my purse, and practically ran the 3 blocks back to my apartment and up those dreaded stairs. It was true! This soda was code for diet coke!At first I wondered it this was going to be a let down. I feared that maybe I had over exaggerated the difference between coca light and diet coke in my head, and having grown accustomed to drinking coca light with revulsion, I may not be able to tell the difference in the diet coke. Oh but how silly that fear turned out to be. The sweet taste of aspartame without disgusting sweeteners came back into my life. I've done some research and it turns out it's not all in my head. There are two different ingredients in coca light that are not in diet coke and they are "sweeteners" and "extracts of vegetables". Leave it to the French to put vegetables in coca light. I'm surprised there's not ham and cheese flavoring and a touch of alcohol in their coca light. I like my aspartame straight up and I'm happy to have three cans of it still waiting for me.
Along with the diet coke were tights tall enough for me, underwear, and to my happiness and frightenedness, swiss roll cakes. I may or may not have once upon a time had a problem with swiss roll cakes that caused me to gain obscene amounts of weight. And I may or may not have not eaten them for eight years for fear that once I started I would not stop, until in a moment of panic and desperate need this summer I may or may not have eaten five packs (of a six pack box) before throwing the box in the trash and making my roommate take the trash out. To my great pleasure, there were only four. And I have managed to eat only two of them.
Moral of the story: You can send me diet coke! And it won't explode! Wooo! But please, for the love of all that is holy, do not put any swiss roll cakes in with them. 4 I can handle, but anymore might do me in and send me back to 7th grade. Which wasn't a pretty time - I've burned most of the pictures but otherwise I would prove it. Anyway, if you feel suddenly urged to send me diet coke, here is my address!
I'm off to do my French homework. And maybe eat a swiss roll cake....or two
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