Voodoo VALenomics

Uh huh. Just as I suspected. You all claim innocence in The Great Diet Coke Intervention of Val 2016! Better start looking side-eyed at each other. The shifty sidelong glance. Because somewhere in your midst is one who has a little likeness of Val sitting next to their electronic device. Made from a corncob, perhaps. With a tuft of dog hair, and SnoCap eyes, and chicken bone legs, and Twizzler arms. A little likeness that they shook on Sunday around 11:37 a.m., making the Voodoo Val Twizzler arms all bendy and flappy and out of control. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here...

I finally procured my 44 oz Diet Coke on Sunday morning, and arrived back at the homestead with it intact. It was a bit later than I'd planned, but I had my magical elixir, and leftover chicken in Frig II, my better equal other half on the way home, fleabags on the porch who adore me, undisturbed computer time awaiting me...and all was right with the world. I warmed my breast (heh, heh) in the microwave (the one with TWO handles, made from drawer knobs that Hick had on hand), sprinkled a generous portion of powdered Great Value Cherry Limeade in my Diet Coke, filled up two bubba cups with ice, and prepared to hike them down a rocky trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon transport them down the 13 steps to my dark basement lair.

This process is almost as big an undertaking as planning a meet-up with my mom used to be. I have to put the bubba cups in a Walmart bag, then squeeze my 44 oz Diet Coke down between them, and test it several times to make sure they are balanced when I drape it over my arm. With that hand, I carry a tray with my meal. Phone goes in shirt pocket. My other hand is used to hang onto the banister spindles that surround the big opening down to the basement, because there is no rail on either side. Halfway down, I have to set down the tray, switch my 800-lb bag of ice/elixir to the other arm, and pick up the tray again, to reach the now-empty hand onto part of the ceiling and then a metal support pole at the bottom, just to steady myself. I really, really miss The Pony.

Despite whichever ne'er-do-well tried to thwart my Diet-Coking spree, I made it down safely. I put my breast (heh, heh) on the left side of my keyboard, and the bubba cups and 44 oz on the right, as usual. Then I took one bubba to fill with water from the NASCAR bathroom sink next to my office. Oh, yes. I had it made in the shade. Actually, NOT the shade, because I've been leaving the light on in my dark basement lair. You know. Since I'm home alone. And there are lots of noises unexplained...

Yes, Val was livin' high on the hog! I fired up New Delly and logged in. Set out one aspirin and one ibuprofen for later, the first for my clotting issues, the second for my disgruntled knees. I took a couple swigs of my beverage, and added 15 pieces of ice from the other bubba cup. Sometimes that varies. It needs just enough to bring the level to the rim. Then I put the lid back on, and it's good for four or five hours.

I turned to take a bite of breast (heh, heh). It's fried, you know, that gas station chicken. And absolutely succulent. With grease juices dripping down my chin, I reached over to the right for a paper towel. I always keep a couple there, folded up, next to my printer area. I've done it a million times. Or at least as many times as I've eaten gas station chicken down there. I like a routine. Everything laid out just so. I could do it in the dark. But this time, somebody was jigglin' Val's effigy. My right hand hit my precious 44 oz Diet Coke

AND TURNED IT OVER AND SPILLED ABOUT 11 OZ!!!

Of course that red elixir poured out onto my stack of the past three years' tax forms. It spread out toward the Panasonic (sadly, he has no name) phone near my computer tower. It surrounded my three flash drives. Four pens. A little notebook that I do some writing in, with the business card of agent Jill Marr in the front pocket. It inundated my mouse pad.

I was shocked. SHOCKED! Not so much by the mess, as by the loss. The loss of some ounces of my precious 44 oz Diet Coke! I grabbed a small Styrofoam bowl that was stacked on the counter to the left, from when I have double-bowled some BBQ slaw that might split a single bowl. I put it under the edge of the counter where that red pool was forming a red waterfall. You know what? That whole new lake of Cherry Limeade Diet Coke came right over the edge. It was as if somebody had pulled the plug in a bathtub of Cherry Limeade Diet Coke. I guess it was the capillary action, even though it wasn't in a tube. So technically, cohesion would be a better explanation by a former physics teacher, those molecules of Cherry Limeade Diet Coke, the major component of which is water, were sticking to each other and following one another over the edge like tiny red molecular lemmings over a cliff.

At this sight, I thought, "What the not-heaven? I can pour this bowl of Cherry Limeade Diet Coke back into my cup!" And I DID! I saved most of my soda. Just a little bit got on the floor. Oh, and a little bit soaked into the taxes. But other than that, I must have had a good 39 oz left!

I'm pretty sure drinking some scratch-off lottery ticket shavings didn't hurt me. And my counter has never been cleaner!

Val does not need an intervention. You can toss Voodoo Val back in the corncrib.