My name is Kate, and I’m a Tab addict.
It started out simply enough: a can here and there. Nothing big. When I was living in the Midwest, there was always plenty of Tab around. I’d share one with my friends, and once I even gave some to my oldest kid.
That was then.
Now where I live there’s no Tab soda. None. Nada. Zip.
I crave it, man. I dream of Tab. Sometimes, when the sunrise reflects on the ocean in a heavenly pink amid the white caps of the breaking waves, it reminds me of a can of Tab. Man, I miss that stuff. I always beg people who come to visit me to bring some Tab with them. “Hey,” I’ll tell them, “I’ll pay you back. I just need you to get me some. C’mon. Pleeeeeease?”
Some folks get it. My sister-in-law, for example, showed up with 4 12-packs in a spare suitcase. I was a happy camper, until I ran out.
Tomorrow Kelley gets here for a week. I needed an adult to accompany my daughter on her flight from Missouri and, since I have to buy a second ticket anyway, I figured I’d rather fly a friend out. After all, my birthday’s on Tuesday: what a way to treat myself, right? Kelley tells me she’s only bringing 3 cans of Tab. Three. Three!? Her carry-on is too small to fit more in. Man, talk about bummed out.
But there’s always Beverages Direct, right? Wrong. They only ship to the contiguous 48. I did manage to find one place that ships here, but for $35 in Tab the shipping was an additional $189.
So, I guess I’m going to have to resign myself to going through withdrawals. I doubt Betty Ford has a program for this, which means I’ll have to go it alone.
Poor Kelley. I get cranky when I jones.
I have VIOLENT reactions to Nutrasweet. A can of Nutrasweet-sweetened soda will force me into a dark, quiet room for a day until the poison passes through me.
I curse Tab for the moment it went to a sweetener “blend". I recall it clearly. It was a Sunday in the late 1980’s and I went to the office to catch up on some programming work. I bought a six-pack of Tab and emptied 3 cans into a huge ice-filled glass. I chugged most of it and sipped the rest over the period of a half hour in order to get my perfectly-caffeinated programmer’s trance. Then I found I couldn’t look at the text on my computer manuals for more than a few sentences at a time. Looking at my monitor became painful. I realized I was getting nothing done and was feeling highly agitated. So I called the day a loss and drove home. My attention span was so reduced that I couldn’t even bear to flip channels on my TV to find anything I wanted to watch. My skin got sensitive, almost as if I had sunburn. I stayed in my bedroom pretty much until Tuesday night and could only return to work on Wednesday.
I’ve experimented since then, trying no more than half a can of Nutrasweetened soda and the tell-tale symptoms returned. I subsequently learned that a good hot shower and pumping LOTS of water through my system helped to flush it out.
The last time I had Nutrasweet was unintentional. It was a Saturday night and I had just returned home from the final Sabbath services at my synagogue. I was bouncing off the walls. It almost seemed as if I could feel every sound wave like a whip…. and I had 5 kids living at home. Extrapolate. I racked my brain trying to figure out how I could have been exposed to Nutrasweet. I knew I had a light meal about an hour earlier and recall, specifically, pouring myself Coke from a 2-liter bottle. Thinking hard, I guessed that maybe that was not a new bottle and that some of the folk who had cleared up the morning’s post-services snack had tried to save space in the synagogue’s refrigerator and had combined bottles, maybe even thinking that it might be nice if someone got FEWER calories. The next day I phoned the friend who usually does the clearing and asked if that’s what he did… and I was right. He doesn’t mix different sodas any more.
I have two brothers in law who are neurologists and confirmed that I am not phenylketoneuric but agreed with my assessment that I am highly allergic to the proteins used to make the stuff. Others may have no reaction. I do.
The subsequent acesulfame-k sweetened sodas just don’t cut it.
I’ll take the sugar. Alright… high fructose corn syrup. Feh. The ONLY good soda is Passover-blend Coke, which replaces the cheap corn with REAL SUGAR AS GOD INTENDED IT!
Comment by Aaron’s Rantblog — June 3, 2004 @ 7:55 pm
There HAS to be a way for me to ship it to you.
Lemme know. I’d be glad to hunt it down for you.
Comment by Emma — June 3, 2004 @ 9:52 pm
Have a great week!
Comment by Quas — June 3, 2004 @ 10:45 pm
Do you have a commissary close by? I see you’re a military wife. My mom is a TABAHOLIC and has been drinking it god.. for as long as I can remember. She drank it when we lived in Hawaii too. Of course that was a long time ago but I know every commissary I’ve been in stateside carries it anyway.. I’m sorry though cause I know my mom would be up a tree if she couldnt have her Tab.
Comment by rachel — June 4, 2004 @ 4:05 am
i love tab. every little garage bodega in spain sells a litre bottle of it for 100 pesetas… about 75 cents at the time. used to have it all the time. you have to really go out of your way to find it stateside.
Comment by mlah — June 4, 2004 @ 4:12 am
Did you ever see that Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode on the Cartoon Network where there’s a live-action product-placement interlude where he’s dancing around on the beach with a person in a Tab soda can suit?
Or was I just dreaming that?
Comment by norbizness — June 4, 2004 @ 4:27 am
Go South, young woman, go South. Tab can be found a plenty in Dixie.
Comment by Zach — June 4, 2004 @ 6:57 am
OMG - My mom was a tab addcit for years and years. I don’t really remember when or why she stopped (maybe when I was away at college) but I will never forget those damn bottles in the fridge that us kids were forbidden to touch. This post (and all your “tab” links) made me laugh until I cried! Thanks.
Comment by Cinders — June 4, 2004 @ 11:42 am
As I sit here, drinking a Tab, I hurt for you.
Cheers, dear Kate… this Tab’s for you!
Comment by Jeff — June 4, 2004 @ 11:50 am
Ah, Tab is on the way!
Comment by Venomous Kate — June 4, 2004 @ 11:57 am