Beverage?

When I was younger we had to drink milk with dinner. (I remember we had these little white plastic Kool-Aid cups and these multicolored Tupperware ones. Heck, we STILL have those little multicolored ones. They're over 30 years old now.) Anyway... I absolutely HATE milk now. I hate it SO much that I don't even want to touch it. If I'm cooking and spill some, I'll wipe it up with as little contact as possible and immediately rinse my hands off. It stinks too. Bleeehhh.... Just the thought makes me ill.
No, I am NOT neurotic. Keep quiet.
But when you're a kid your life is pretty much milk, juice, water and the "once in a blue moon" soda. Or at least that's what my life as a kid was like. My favorite juice was grape, I adored Capri Sun and Sunny Delight, and Root Beer was my soda of choice. And I actually liked milk.
It's weird how your taste buds can do a 180 on you, isn't it? Mine did.
At some point I started to dislike all of my former favorites.
And somewhere along the long line I discovered Diet Coke.
*angelic singing, bright light, dancing turtles with shiny halos*
I love Diet Coke. It is my favorite beverage of all time.
It's so bubbly and sweet and perfect.
There are alcoholic drinks that are sweet and fruity. They make your face feel warm and flushed, which is quite lovely.
There's water, which is cool and refreshing and keeps you alive.
And there's Diet Green Tea, which is tart and sweet and brisk all at the same time.
But Diet Coke is the best.
Now here's the kicker.
I started taking this new medicine in January for my Trigeminal Neuralgia. It's called Topamax and it has all kinds of crazy side-effects. But the weirdest one is that it makes all carbonated beverages taste like poo.
POO, I tell you. And nobody wants to be drinking that. (I'm guessing, anyway)
So Diet Coke does not taste nice anymore. It's like The Twilight Zone. Or hell. Either one.
All soda tastes awful now. It must be because of the carbon dioxide in it, which is just bizarre. I don't know enough about chemistry to explain it but I wish I did. It'd probably be a very interesting study.
But I remember the TRUE taste of Diet Coke.
And my allegiance will remain forever true.
*salute*