Back when I was a young whipper snapper in college, I drank a lot of pop. That’s not code. Like actual pop. A disproportionate amount of that was Mountain Dew. I would buy a cube (more commonly referred to as a 24 pack or case nowadays, but it’s a cube) of the green stuff and leave it in my room. I didn’t have a fridge, I just enjoyed the convenience. I couldn’t possibly be bothered to walk out to the kitchen to get something to drink.

So there I was, just hanging out in my room, with a cube full of pop and a laptop full of downloaded movies. What am I to do? I guess I could watch these movies and drink this pop. I would polish off those lukewarm Dews in a few days. I’d say probably five days max.

I don’t know how this came up (everything is a blur at this point), but the other day the Mrs. and I were talking about this very phenomenon, and an idea was born. I had a few days off coming up, so why don’t we see how long it would take me to once again drink a cube of Mountain Dew. I got the OK to go for it, so that’s what I did.

I didn’t really make any rules for this thing, and I really just wanted to see how long it would take. I was just going to drink pop and not race through it, but I wouldn’t need to. There isn’t pop in this house too often, because I have no self control and I would plow through it at an alarming rate. But is it the same as the good old days?

First off, these boxes are just as bad as they have ever been. The perforations to open it up don’t make any sense. Why is there another layer of cardboard behind it? Sometimes it’s perfect, most of the time it’s not. Figure it out, thanks.

I started on Sunday night and got a couple in. Nice start. I then got right back at it Monday morning and ended with five for the day. On a pretty solid pace. I was a little apprehensive when I started this journey, like come on guy, what’s the point? I wasn’t necessarily enjoying it at this point either, but I didn’t have any ill effects, so let’s keep it going.

Tuesday is where the wheels started to fall off. I started again in the morning, and from my detailed notes I took (the time and what number pop it was) I was having one about every three hours. By dinner time I was up to 11 total in about 48 hours.

I’m not a healthy person. Left to my own devices, I eat terribly. I’m wildly out of shape. Sometimes if I take a deep breath, I feel like I ran a 5K (which I have done before, not to brag). My right arm is basically falling off at the shoulder. At 6:24 PM on 8/25/20, when I took my first sip of number 12, is when I officially knew I was getting old. Nobody needs to have the ability to crush Dew after Dew, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Once upon a time I had it. I confirmed that I no longer had it. And I felt like shit.

I texted the Mrs. today and said I think it’s time to hang ’em up. “Yeah, probably best to stop.” I fully intend on finishing them off, but it’ll probably be sometime in September. Although I did have number 13 as soon as I got home, and now that I think about it, I am pretty thirsty right now.