The Intellectual Scrapheap: Not-So-Deep Thoughts from the Mind of Blaine Fridley Merton Sussex

'Morning, all. Unca Mert, here. I'm filling in on the Scrapheap today because Blaine had a family emergency. His wife is writhing in the exquisite torture of estrus, so he's taken a powder on his Diary duties to go and attend to her needs, leaving the asylum to the inmates. Several of us offered to go to his house and take care of the situation there in his stead in order that he could stay hard at work at Diary H.Q., but he just looked at us with sad, moist eyes as he sped away on his salmon-colored Vespa. So you're stuck with us.

Rapid gear-shift ahead...

I don't want Diabetes. I really don't. But, like most American consumers, I've been conditioned to drink my own weight in carbonated beverages every day, so it's a concern. It's a little-known fact that corn-syrup futures are actually calculated on a formula based on the weight of the average American multiplied by the number of us there are. And, while you'd think that due to our ever-ballooning Western waistlines, this business model would result in a growth projection that will never subside, the amount of obesity-related deaths ALSO increasing keeps the numbers flatter than the lobbyists would like. And that's not even taking into account the number of people who've done what I've done: taken the drastic, life-altering step of switching to diet soda.

Ah, diet. I have a love/hate relationship with the stuff, honestly. On the one hand, I can still pound as many fizzy lifting drinks as I used to when I was but a wee lad with a pink, freshly-srubbed pancreas. On the other, for a good chunk of diet soda's life, it has, to put it mildly, sucked out loud. Most of the reason for this lies with the high-fructose corn syrup substitutes they've swapped into the formula in order to maintain the basic flavor without all the death-hastening sugar.

This sugar farmer labors 16 hours in the tropical sun 7 days a week so that your
fat ass can enjoy your Cheerios 14% more. You're welcome.

Some were obviously more successful than others. Cyclamates were apparently awesome in the sixties, but the trade-off for a sweet, refreshing beverage was, far too often, a heapin' helpin' of scrumptious cancer. Saccharin came next. And while it boasted 60 times the sweetness of sugar, it left an aftertaste in your gob like you'd been gargling the filter-scrapin's from an all-male Turkish bath. One that was actually located in Turkey.

In the eighties, Aspartame (a.k.a. "Nutra-Sweet®") was to be the dieter's savior, but lingering questions about its safety still persist, mainly due to its apparent link to brain tumors and lymphoma. But, whatever. That shit only shows up in lab rats who get enough of it crammed into their filthy little hides that it would take a human six, maybe seven years of drinking a case a day to get there. Which is why I only drank HALF a case. Momma didn't raise no idiots.

An Aspartame molecule. Sure, it LOOKS innocent. But it once capped a weekend
bender in Vegas by stabbing a $40 hooker and dumping her body in the desert.

These days, we've got Sucralose (codename: "Splenda®") to trick our collective sweet tooth into thinkng we still love it. Splenda® stamps all of their bright yellow boxes of sunshine with the mantra: "Made from sugar!" as if to reassure the consumer that Sucralose IS sugar, but with the Diabetes-y part just plain taken out somehow.

(Warning: Science ahead. Double-digit I.Q.'ers are welcome to tune out.)

In reality, Sucralose is a polychlorinated biphenyl (or 'PCB') compound. Lucky for us, it's engineered to be a lot sweeter than most. A good number of the PCB compounds that the industrial sector USED to use as dielectric fluid in things like transformers and capacitors, coolants, lubricants, stabilizing additives in flexible PVC coatings of electrical wiring and electronic components, pesticide extenders, cutting oils, flame retardants, hydraulic fluids, caulking sealants, adhesives, wood floor finishes, paints, de-dusting agents, and carbonless copy paper were probably not quite so very tasty. And I say "USED to use" because the U.S. government actually banned them in the '70's. Seems that long-term exposure to these chemicals had a tendency to result in liver damage, ocular lesions, irregular menstrual cycles, lowered immune response, and poor cognitive development in children. In fact, in 1968, just 280 kilograms of of PCB-contaminated rice bran oil used as chicken feed in Japan resulted in a mass poisoning known as Yushō Disease in over 14,000 OF THE PEOPLE WHO ATE THE CHICKENS.

He's labeling an industrial generator because PCB's were used in its wiring, and may someday
escape...at which point they will immediately rape and eat you, your children and your
housepets. And not necessarily in that order.

Oh, by the way, Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (better known as the deadly pesticide DDT) is also a polychlorinated biphenyl. Just thought I'd let you know in case you were super-hyped to line up for a little breast cancer. Yeah, guys, too.

Ah, the lengths we go to in order to keep our insulin pumping, and not have to give up our nice, bubbly, tooth-rotting beverages! Billions in R&D, side effects in the dozens, and diseases far more horrible to contemplate than a little Type II or gingivitis, and yet, we drink...

...Even though diet soda almost universally sucks.

And, THERE'S the elephant in the refrigerator nobody's willing to acknowledge. Big business though it may be to the nation's drinkable-purveyors, let's be frank...Diet Soda is pretty fuckin' horrible. We only drink it if we're being forced through guilt or health concerns. Nobody chooses it if they have an option. As the illustrious D. Trull of The Lard Biscuit put it, "I refuse to drink diet soft drinks because they taste like shit. I know, I know, 'you get used to them,' but I'd rather not get used to the taste of shit." Well-put, old friend.

Truth be told, you do sort of..."adjust" to the flavor of diet soda, I guess, much the same way that living in the American south forces you to lower your expectations regarding the breadth of human potential. There's a case to be made that the "drier" texture of diet, with its metallic, chemical-tang aftertaste, is sort of an even trade for the fact that your mouth doesn't end up coated with that sticky, theatre-floor residue that corn syrup leaves behind. But the fact remains that some diet "versions" taste far better than their sugarless contemporaries.

Sadly, this is their HOME theatre.

Personally, I've developed something of an affinity for the Coca-Cola company's line of "Zero" products. Coke Zero and Cherry Coke Zero are surprisingly good, given their chemically-sweetened nature. Diet Dr. Pepper is also legendarily passable, and doesn't offend too terribly. Most citrus sodas are often pretty easy to pull off as well, given the acidic bite balancing out any nastiness in the finish. Diet 7up and Diet Sierra Mist are mostly pretty decent.

However, there remains a great offender in the diet soda pantheon, a foul interloper whose aggressive, unrepentant shittiness reinforces every negative stereotype of sugar-void drinks, and manages to create several new ones in the bargain. I refer, of course, to Diet Mountain Dew.

Pictured: Industrial Waste.

Let's just get this out of the way: Diet Mountain Dew is horrible. It not only isn't a reasonable facsimile of Mountain Dew, it isn't even a remotely-servicible substitute for kerosene. Diet Mountain Dew is so revolting that it's not even a good MIXER. Think about it: at any outdoor picnic, beach party, or other warm-weather-get-together, what's always the last thing left? The final batch of remnants, still faffing about the bottom of the cooler, unloved and undrank even long after the store-brand knockoffs are already bound for your kidneys? Yep...Diet Mountain Dew. Time and time again you see them: the hapless Diabetics and dieters migrating to the coolers, looking for a bit of relief from their sun-and-volleyball-parched throats, only to reach over and over into the bottom, getting more and more frustrated when all they can manage to retrieve is can after can of this abomination. After a while, the ice melts enough that you can see clear to the basin foor. And there they still are, bobbing around unloved, like the bloated little corpses of oily, bottom-feeding junk fish. Even frat boys who will drink ANYTHING that's not visibly pumping out of a factory waste canister, someone else's genitals, or some other unsavory orifice will leave this stuff to the carrion-scavengers.

"Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you, pal.
I'm not touchin' it EITHER."

Which brings me to MY sad tale of woe.

Recently, it dawned on me that I needed some soda for my mini-fridge at Diary H.Q. As we've already established, I'm a thirsty mofo (and burn through more than my fair share of drinks), so I run out frequently. So, on my way home from your mom's house last night (she would have said "Hi!", but her mouth was full), I stopped at my friendly neighborhood convenience store to pick up a few 12-packs to take with me in the morning.

Coke Zero was an easy choice. But, being as this was a quick-stop joint and not a full-service grocery, their other diet soda options were limited. I could easily have opted to double up on the Coke, but multiplying by zero is never a good idea (that one's for all you math majors). Besides, I like variety. So, I instead did something I swore I'd never do again: I bought a 12'er of the only other diet option they had available: the dreaded Diet Mountain Dew.

Yeah, I know. But I actually had a thought process about it. "Oh, I'm sure it isn't STILL abysmal," I thought to myself. "Diet sodas have improved a lot in recent years. They wouldn't be able to hang in the marketplace if they hadn't punched it up some. It's been years, how bad could it be if it's still out here?"

Well, for the curious who threw in the towel and gave it the gas face years ago, I'm happy to report that it's just as soul-crushingly disgusting as ever, if not worse. To put a fine point on it, it tastes like salty horse piss that's been squeezed through a dirty sweat sock, then left in the sun for a few days to ferment before being chilled to serving temperature. In fact, I think I'd almost rather drink THAT.

"You're right, actually. It's better. Don't ask how I know."

Admittedly, I'm baffled. I can't imagine why this shit is still so profoundly nauseating. I can't imagine how it's survived so long in such a sad state of obvious neglect. The only theory I can concoct is this: as the bastard, red-headed sugarless stepchild of the hyper-charged Dew family, it's been intentionally allowed to go to seed because the bleeding-edge X-tremists over at the head office are kind of ashamed of it. I mean, they sort of HAVE to have a token, perfunctory "diet" offering under the auspices of general marketplace custom. But nowhere is it written that said offering has to be any GOOD. It doesn't really fit in with their marketing to have a product in the line that's not more loaded with sugar than Brazil, and pumped full of so much caffeine that paramedics are allowed to keep syringes full of the stuff on hand for direct intra-cardial injection of would-be redliners.

Besides, the snow-boarding X-Gamers that comprise the core of their target advertising demographic could give a shit about zero sugar, because they're still young enough that they don't even realize that hopping on a plank with wheels and launching themselves into drainage ravines without a helmet on is inadvisable. So, Diet Mountain Dew is sort of like the training wheels on the bike; the inflatable bumpers in the bowling-alley gutters. They keep it on hand so that when the total LAMEZORZ need something that won't blow their stocking caps and rollerblades off with a single sip, they can roll their eyes, sigh heavily, and jerk a lazy, conemptuous thumb in the general direction of this swill as a reluctant concession. "Fine, you win. It's over THERE. Enjoy the Bunny Slope, noob."

I found this picture in the dictionary next to the definition for "douchebag."

However, everyone else, be warned: STAY AWAY. Because the only thing worse than happily guzzling enough chemicals to give your TUMORS tumors is not even enjoying the ride because the refreshments blow harder than a drunk sorority girl.

(P.S. to my fellow DoF'ers: Hey, guys! I've got some Diet Mountain Dew in my 'fridge, in case you're thirsty!)