This creative essay is also being published in the 'zine Pi, invented by a very warped but funny human being named Chuck G.

Orange soda: ambrosia from the gods. Okay, perhaps that's an exaggeration. Ambrosia is really a fruit cocktail mixed in honey (with optional marshmallows) that I have made on several occasions. But orange soda is definitely something ethereal. It has no caffeine in it, so you can't become a filthy drug addict. (Yes, caffeine is a drug! Don't you pay attention in health class?) It's even good warm, but is best when chilled in a nice, recyclable, aluminum can. It quenches your thirst, gives you the delusion that you are having one of your daily servings of fruit (you're not--it's artificial), and best of all, it turns your tongue orange! Anything that changes the colour of your tongue, short of a disease, is a great product.

The best brand of orange soda, by far, is Safeway Select orange soda. Yes, the cheap shit greatly surpasses most brand-name sodas. The only other brand that can even come close to the greatness of Safeway's carbonated-orange heaven is Minute Maid orange soda. Its can is aesthetically pleasing (although Slice's can is far more colourful), and it has a crisp, fresh taste that wakes up your taste buds and tells them that it's time to par-tay! The only orange soda that really bothers me is Sunkist. The can, while pretty, is a little too perky and cheerful for my liking. Also it has caffeine in it--a small dosage, but enough to spark a migraine in my fragile skull and inspire me to write long-winded rants during work--and it tastes too fruity. Orange soda was not made to taste like real oranges! It is *supposed* to taste like red 40, yellow 5, and other "natural flavours" that were naturally made in a laboratory. When your sodas taste too much like something that came from a tree or a vine, then there's a problem. (Especially if it tastes like it came from a cacao plant...but that's a rant I'll save for a rainy day.)

Two years ago, I gave up orange soda for Lent. (Yes, I'm Catholic. Please don't stone me; it'll only piss me and my God off, and you don't want that.) I had been especially sinful that year (Hell, I dated David—twice!), and I figured that true suffering would purge the evil out of me. Much to my horror, my father purchased a case of Minute Maid orange soda the day before Lent started. I would have killed him, but then I remembered that that was a deadly sin, and I was already in the process of renting a nice condo in Hell ($350 a month, satellite dish, Jacuzzi), and I didn't want to make it worse.

The first day I went to the refrigerator to get a couple of juice boxes for lunch later that day. As soon as I opened the door, my eyes fell upon the cans of orange soda. The light glowed softly down upon them, and the little droplets of condensation felt cool and relaxing to the touch. I snapped myself out of it and was reaching for the fruit punch when I heard a little voice say, "Drink us, Nikki. We'd go so well with your cheese sandwich and Ho-Ho. Don't you love us anymore?" Then my mouth was flooded with the taste of ice-cold Minute Maid. I screamed, grabbed my juice boxes, and slammed the refrigerator door. It was the only time in my life so far that I have ever been tempted by Satan.

I have no idea how I made it through all 40 days and 40 nights, but let me tell you, when Easter Sunday arrived, I woke up, ran to the fridge, and popped open a can of orange soda. Dear Lord, nothing ever tasted so good. There were 24 cans in the case; by Wednesday, half were gone.

Anytime I'm feeling down or angry, I grab a can of orange soda and guzzle that sucker like it was a bottle of vodka. I simply adore orange soda. Well, I'm off. There's a can of Safeway Select with my name on it, and I need something to wash down these little yellow pills the men in the white suits gave me.