Insert Tab Here
From the age of five until I left for college, my grandfather lived with us. He was an unforgiving and stubborn old man who was made that way from the unforgiving and stubborn life of a farmer. He was diabetic, and even though he knew damn well he wasn't supposed to, he'd buy things like Entenmann's chocolate chip cookies and hide them to snack on. Another thing he used to drink was Tab cola.
I have no idea why, but even as a kid, I used to think Tab was weird. Most likely from a mix of watching too much Incredible Hulk, Planet of the Apes, and Twilight Zone, I likened Tab to something a mad scientist would mix up. Battery acid in a can. A lab experiment gone bad. What can I say, I was a strange little kid that grew into a strange big kid.
Now I haven't seen Tab on the shelf in years. To be honest, I thought it had stopped being made, or else some other company had bought it, slapped a label for, say... metal polish or something... and it was being marketed differently.
I was wrong.
Early today I was standing in line at Target, daydreaming about how it should be legal for me to kill the person in front of me if they make me wait by running their credit card to charge their purchase, then change their mind and ask to write a check instead.
And I notice in the cooler beside me, an unassuming little fuschia can with a funky wallpaper pattern on it and written in that small, white, Planet of the Apes font, TAB energy drink.
Well, those of you who know me realize by now that there are few drinks that I won't try. Most of my friends have learned it's an exercise in futility to try and dissuade me from trying different drinks, bellyaches be damned. Another friend of mine has taken it upon him at various moments to send me drinks such as Canned Turkish Coffee Soda (phenomenal, by the way, and OH what a rush), Orbitz (a clear fruity soda with floating... gelatinous globs are as close a description as I can get) among other things. I once drank homemade raisinjack wine to the point where I was attempting to eat a moth. He deserved it - he flew into the drink. But I digress.
I've just finished drinking the Tab energy drink. It tastes mildly like cherries that have been left in the sun just slightly too long, and lo and behold, it has that same Tab aftertaste - that odd mixture of shoe polish, dirty pennies, and the syrupy mess that leaks from bad batteries.
I'm guessing two possibilities could result from this... either I'm going to go into cardiac arrest or my cerebellum is going to explode.
What the hell does this have to do with anything?
Well, I'll tell you... I've been ridiculously busy lately with work. So much so that it's leeching the fun out of a lot of other things - the things that matter. This is a problem I'm working to unfuck.
Because the signs are all around me that I should be doing less corporate bird-cage liner work and more of what goes on in the wee hours late at night and into the next day.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... how my daughter's playdate turned into a "Six Degrees of..." situation.
I have no idea why, but even as a kid, I used to think Tab was weird. Most likely from a mix of watching too much Incredible Hulk, Planet of the Apes, and Twilight Zone, I likened Tab to something a mad scientist would mix up. Battery acid in a can. A lab experiment gone bad. What can I say, I was a strange little kid that grew into a strange big kid.
Now I haven't seen Tab on the shelf in years. To be honest, I thought it had stopped being made, or else some other company had bought it, slapped a label for, say... metal polish or something... and it was being marketed differently.
I was wrong.
Early today I was standing in line at Target, daydreaming about how it should be legal for me to kill the person in front of me if they make me wait by running their credit card to charge their purchase, then change their mind and ask to write a check instead.
And I notice in the cooler beside me, an unassuming little fuschia can with a funky wallpaper pattern on it and written in that small, white, Planet of the Apes font, TAB energy drink.
Well, those of you who know me realize by now that there are few drinks that I won't try. Most of my friends have learned it's an exercise in futility to try and dissuade me from trying different drinks, bellyaches be damned. Another friend of mine has taken it upon him at various moments to send me drinks such as Canned Turkish Coffee Soda (phenomenal, by the way, and OH what a rush), Orbitz (a clear fruity soda with floating... gelatinous globs are as close a description as I can get) among other things. I once drank homemade raisinjack wine to the point where I was attempting to eat a moth. He deserved it - he flew into the drink. But I digress.
I've just finished drinking the Tab energy drink. It tastes mildly like cherries that have been left in the sun just slightly too long, and lo and behold, it has that same Tab aftertaste - that odd mixture of shoe polish, dirty pennies, and the syrupy mess that leaks from bad batteries.
I'm guessing two possibilities could result from this... either I'm going to go into cardiac arrest or my cerebellum is going to explode.
What the hell does this have to do with anything?
Well, I'll tell you... I've been ridiculously busy lately with work. So much so that it's leeching the fun out of a lot of other things - the things that matter. This is a problem I'm working to unfuck.
Because the signs are all around me that I should be doing less corporate bird-cage liner work and more of what goes on in the wee hours late at night and into the next day.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... how my daughter's playdate turned into a "Six Degrees of..." situation.
posted by Bob at 3/22/2006
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