down the drain

[adrian_turtle]

The bottle of diet ginger ale has been in the refrigerator
for quite a while, in the hope of yet more dates with the
charming local person who drinks the damn stuff. I drink
real ginger ale. I don't usually have anything with
artificial sweeteners in the house, because they trigger
my migraines. I was keeping this bottle around while the
bubbles went out of the pop and the hope went out of my
wishful thinking.

I gave up on it tonight. It wasn't as dramatic as the
first afternoon I gave up on my relationship with the
lawyerboy (who was raised by wolves.) That involved
beer, a beverage which also triggers migraines when I
drink it...But it's a fluid that holds more of a charge
than most, other than wine or blood or human milk. At
the time (1997), I flinched hard from the smell of beer,
or the presence of even slight drunkenness. He couldn't
get his head around the idea that a civilized person
would not want alcohol in the house. So there were
bottles of (reportedly, very fine) beer in the back of
my refrigerator after his extended visit, where I ignored
them for months. Until the afternoon I got angry at him.
And I took all the bottles of beer outside, and threw them
against the brick wall at the back of the building. Then
I swept up the broken glass and felt a little better.

This is less dramatic altogether. I'm not even
feeling angry. Just disappointed. There's no broken
glass to clean up. But I need to take the big red
"DANGER: NUTRASWEET" label off the plastic bottle before
returning it for recycling.