To Drink or Not To Drink, That is the Question

I'm a little concerned about what I drink.

I drink diet Coke from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. and sometimes in-between. I take a drink of diet Coke on average every 5 minutes. At work, I drink diet Coke while I wait for my computer to catch up with me; at home, I drink a diet coke as soon as I put my purse down, while I am in the bath, while I am drying my hair, and just before I go to sleep. The only place I don't drink diet coke is in my car.

In bars, I drink fru-fru drinks and/or diet coke. I like lemon-drops, margueritas, and ameretto sours. Oh, and Scooby Snacks. Alcohol does NOT make my clothes fall off; however, if I've been drinking, I'm a helluva lot less worried about my tummy-roll when they do.

In my car, I drink lattes. Specifically, a venti, nonfat, sugar-free vanilla latte.

Now, I know diet Coke has aspartame. But I'm not a Phenylketonuric, so I don't give a rip. It also has phosphoric acid, and I hear that makes awesome swiss cheese of strong bones, but it takes a thousand years. I really don't plan to live that long.

And I know that alcohol kills brain cells. Hopefully, they are ones I don't use anyway. And I do feel smarter when I drink; in fact, my friends think I am smarter when they drink, which is more than me, so I probably seem downright brilliant to them most of the time. Well, they don't really think I'm smarter; but they do think I'm funnier and cuter, and that's more important anyway, right?

The latte, however, has me a leettle concerned. I have one a day, Monday through Friday. Usually, I pick one up on the way to work; lately, though, I've been making them at home to save a few bucks. That's where the worry began.

So, a latte is like 2 ounces of coffee and 16 ounces of milk, plus whatever crap you put in it to make the coffee and milk flavors go away.

Coffee, of course, makes us younger. I got no beef with coffee, although it does seem a crime to use a meat-related word to describe interactions with a bean. Yes, coffee is made from beans, and beans are good for you, high on the food pyramid and we will ignore the fact that the coffee bean isn't really a legit member of the legume clan, more like a dotted line relationship, but oh well, not the point.

Milk on the other hand...there's a concern. I've heard the pander; Milk Does a Body Good, Milk Rocks, Milk The Other White Drink (I made that last one up, but I bet it made you think! :)

Here's the thing, though - as I was making my latte the other day (October 17th, actually), I decided to check the date on the carton of milk just to make sure I wasn't gonna be a little surprised at the exotic taste of my nonfat, sugar-free vanilla flavored coffee. And the date said "December 7, 2007."

October 17th to December 7th. You see the problem? I checked to make sure I had not purchased some Super-brand of milk - nope, just regular ol' Darigold 2% pateurized, homogenized milk. With a shelf life of two months.

Perhaps the alcohol has killed some memory cells, but I remember once upon a time when milk was good for two weeks from the date of purchase. After that, it got a little lumpy and smelt like baby pooh. So, at what point did cows start leaking non-perishable fluids from their teats? Was this in the news and I didn't hear about it? Is this why my boobs are bigger???

I'm gonna need someone to either google this or tell me microbiologically speaking why this is an ok thing. And I'm not talking about the bigger boobs. Until then, I'll just have to flavor my coffee with the other white drink...