my chemical salad

I'm only now realizing that I've fallen into a sort of "bad crowd." Mom always warned me to stay away from substance abusers. Despite her warnings, MOST of the people I hang around these days are diet soda drinkers.

Despite my protests, they're a determined lot. For years I've asked why they insist on the consumption. Usually the response is -- "Hey, let me be healthy! Not everyone has your metabolism you know!"

My obvious response is something like -- Hey! It's gross. It's not pleasurable. WATER tastes better. Not just that, but there's something in diet drinks that makes me ill. I think I sort of finally understand what Maria always used to tell me about Chinese food (that it gave her a headache and made her feel gross). If I chug a diet drink I get a serious headache. The stuff has a far negativer effect on me than mere sugar. Of course there is an outside chance that since everything I eat is sugar I'm having a weird reaction to NOT eating sugar, but I really don't think that's likely.

Anyway, I'm noticing this weird effect more and more because sometimes at crazy parties I accidentally partake in someone else's stash.

I have to bring all this up because late last night I ate a five-quart fruit bowl prepared by treatmaster Cousin Jen. She goes nuts with the treats and it was my secondary fuel for our mid-week Gears of War gamenight (primary fuel: Charlie Chow noodles). The fruit bowl was absolute ambrosia and shortly before I asked how she made it I began to notice a headache forming in my skull. Then she revealed the ingredients: fruit marinated in lime and sweetened with Splenda (TM).

Splenda? Despite my gratitude of the fruit salad's deliciousness, I couldn't help but whine to her a bit. I mean this is the woman who eats an entire package of Dots AND an entire package of Peanut Butter M&Ms AND an entire package of green sugar rings every single time I see her.

I say all this because we finished playing around 2 AM. Check when this post was posted. I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN TO BED. I went home exhausted, hurty and brittle -- but sleep completely escaped me. I only had two Mountain Dews. I blame the chemical salad.

This whole scenario is alarming to me -- not because I ate something containing Splenda and didn't realize it, but for the first time, I ENJOYED something containing Splenda. This may be my gateway, I don't know. Just to be sure, though, I asked Jen to prepare the chemical salad with Mountain Dew rather than Splenda next time around.