Something to know about me is that I love Diet Coke. I know it’s not “good” for me and I also know I really like how it tastes (I think about this tweet from 2019 once a day, minimum) and how it makes me feel (wired, super focused, lightly unhinged — thank you caffeine!). I allow myself one can of Diet Coke a day, sometime between the hours of 12pm-4pm, because if I drink caffeine later than that I won’t sleep well and if I drink Diet Coke earlier than that I feel like I’m messing with the natural progression of the day. Routines are a funny, personal thing. Anyway, since Parker and I both work from home she often hears me cracking open my Diet Coke Of The Day and she’ll call out from the den, where she’s working, “Diet Coke Time!” Sometimes she’ll ask me if I can get her a Coke at that time. But more recently, this cute thing has been happening where I’ll ask her to make me a Diet Coke when I’m ready for my daily joyful beverage. And she does!
What do I mean when I say “make me a Diet Coke”? Great question. The way I enjoy Diet Coke is quite specific: I like to take one specific vessel, a stainless steel pint cup Parker acquired at Pickathon in 2019, and fill it to the very brim with ice cubes. Then I pour about half the can of Diet Coke over the cubes, let the fizz settle, drink it as quickly as possible while still enjoying every sip (so as to preserve the coldness and not let the ice melt too much), and then I do this entire process all over again with the second half of the Diet Coke. It’s really incredible. If I sound unhinged I want you to know that A. I’m okay with that and B. I encourage you to find something to do every day that makes me as happy as drinking my little can of Diet Coke makes me, because everyone deserves to experience this kind of joy daily.
So! Back to my story. Parker has been “making me” my Diet Cokes recently, and it adds an extra layer of delight to the ritual to be presented with my favorite little treat by the person I’m in love with. It feels very special that she knows how I like my Diet Coke — a few weeks ago I started explaining to her what I meant when I asked if she’d make me one and she laughed and was like, “Babe, I know what it means to make you a Diet Coke.” And yes, I fell in love all over again!
But a few days ago, when Parker made me my Diet Coke, something strange happened. I finished my first cup and went to fill it up with the second half of liquid, only to find that the can — still sitting on the countertop, seemingly ready to go — was empty. She doesn’t love Diet Coke but will occasionally drink it, so I thought maybe she’d had the other half and I didn’t say anything, because if the girl is gonna make me a Diet Coke I’m gonna let her drink 50% of it without complaining! I simply opened a second can and yes, drank the whole thing (huge day for me, obviously).
But then it happened again. And again.
The third time it happened, I asked her about it. “I must use less ice than you do,” she shrugged. A very logical response. It hadn’t made a huge difference to my enjoyment of my little routine; I’d noticed the lack of more liquid, not anything negative with the liquid itself. I supposed it was a little more watery, the ice cubes melting a little more swiftly as there were fewer of them in the cup.
Yesterday, Parker made me a Diet Coke while I painted my office pink and when she presented it to me she said, “This is all the Diet Coke in the whole can, in this cup. So don’t expect anymore when you’re done, okay? This is it.” I found it very cute that she knew I’d be expecting more and would be disappointed not to find any so she was cutting off that expectation before it could grow, but I also felt obligated to let her know she was making my Diet Coke wrong (living with a Capricorn is fun, I swear). I politely said, “Hm, okay, that means the ice ratio is wrong!” Thank goddess she loves me, because she just cracked up. “You want more ice than that? I filled up half the cup!” I laughed too. “Okay that’s the problem! You’re supposed to fill it all the way to the top!” She looked genuinely incredulous. “Why?”
One thing about Parker, she loves logic. She also loves me, so she doesn’t always push when I have a somewhat outlandish desire or a completely unreasonable request — my life choices are often filled with emotion rather than reason, and it’s true that sometimes my answer to why I want something done a certain way is that it just feels right. But when it doesn’t cost me anything emotionally, I like to try to figure out the whys to deliver to my sweet practical fiancée, because it helps her understand me, and because I love her brain and the way it works just as much as she loves my heart and the way it works, you know? So I thought critically about why it made sense to put so many ice cubes in my glass of Diet Coke, and I tried to explain it to her. “It keeps things colder longer,” I offered. She looked skeptical. “If there aren’t enough ice cubes the Diet Coke melts the ones that are in there and it gets watery and not as good. Besides, you haven’t lived until a huge hunk of fused together ice cubes hits your upper lip while a stream of Diet Coke flows through your body.” She laughed and laughed. So did I.
It wasn’t until later that evening, when she stood at our fridge with her own cup — a tall regular glass one — and pushed the ice button and told me she was going to try making her Coke my way and I watched the full cubes launch into her cup one after the other after the other that the memory slapped me in the face. Oh.
“That’s how my dad made it,” I said.
“What?”
“What I told you earlier? It’s not not true, Diet Coke does objectively taste better when the ice is all the way to the top of the glass, but that’s not why I do it. I do it because my dad used to do it that way.”
I can see him now. So clearly. Standing in our bright white kitchen, tall glass up against the ice maker built into the fridge, the one he was so proud to have, the one that made him feel like he’d really made it. So fancy. A fridge that produces ice cubes instantly. Maybe it’s a Tuesday and he’s just gotten home from work and is still in his slacks and button down. Maybe it’s a Saturday and his soccer team won and he’s in an amazing mood, lounging in his relaxing clothes, his short shorts and an old t-shirt from a work retreat. He fills the glass with ice all the way to the top, until there is no room for more, and then maybe adds an extra cube for good measure. He cracks the can of Diet Coke open and pours the liquid over his freezing creation. There’s not much space in the glass once all that ice in there, but the liquid that makes it in will be very cold, and that’s how it’s best.
This next sentence is impossible to write right. I want to tell you how much I miss him, how fucked up it is that I will never witness him drink a Diet Coke ever again, but how do I fit the hugeness of that emotion into words, sentences, paragraphs? How do I make it as big as I want it to feel? I could write that sentence — I miss my dad — every day, every moment, again and again for the rest of my life, and it would never take up enough space.
I miss my dad.
Parker likes when I tell her about my dad. She never got to meet him. She nods at this explanation, accepts it.
She likes to know why because she’s logical but she understands that sometimes the answer is because that’s how I feel it must be and I like when my feelings are validated but I also like getting to the bottom of them.
I like knowing that I drink my Diet Coke the way my dad did, that I made it that way without even realizing it, that there are so many things he taught me — many of them much more substantial and important than a Diet Coke habit! — that are simply ingrained in me, that I will carry forever, that I will discover unexpectedly when someone I love asks “why do you do that” and I will realize for the rest of my life, over and over and over and over, of course, of course —
Because of my dad.
Writing & Reading Updates:
If you want to take writing classes with me this winter/spring, you sure can — there are a few spots left in my Creative Nonfiction Workshop and my Instant Feedback Workshop.
If you live in Portland and would like to see me read in person, I’ll be the featured reader at One Page on February 1. Details to come, but the event is downtown at 7pm and it’s free to attend! Mark your calendars.