Les marques

I’ve been thinking long and hard about the things we’ll find hard to give up in the name of cost. Coca-cola will be one. I for one will be a diet coke girl until the day I die. I’ve been a diet-coke-head since I was 15 and I don’t see that changing. There’s a photograph of my high-school best friend, Emma, pointing at a can of diet coke and it just about sums us up. Diet coke, Marlboro and apples. We lived and died off these, embellished by peperami (Emma), scampi fries (Emma) and wispas (both of us). Tricia, our probably bulimic friend, would go on diets of diet coke and apples. We lived and died diet coke. I still drink it. Pepsi, diet Pepsi, full-fat coke, Coke Zero, own brand, it’s not for us.

Of all my life, there’s only been one diet-coke-free period, and that was when I was in Cuba. No brands there. If you don’t buy and consume Cuban, you would starve! Generic hamburger joints run by the state, pizza from fantastic hidden away places where you buy it from the back of someone’s house, terrible state-hotel food or fantastic paladars serving amazing food, like the place we stopped for lobster in Santiago: nothing had a brand on it. No brand beer or coffee. No McDonalds or Pizza Hut. And no Coca-Cola. The most recognised brand of all, arguably.

Jake’s brand of choice is also Coca-Cola, of the full-fat variety, although I try and push him in the way of Zero. Diet coke is undrinkable, to him. It does make me wonder why I go for the expensive Diet-Coke 500mls instead of cans or a litre bottle, and why Jake goes for the full-fat version, or cherry. What is it that we can’t get from own-brand Cola? I’m going to start transferring and see if it makes a difference! I bet it does to my pocket!

Whilst I’ve given up smoking and whilst I can go without stuff, diet coke is the one thing I buy that’s actually really expensive, eating a hole in my pocket, bad for me and I’m also unable to swap for a home-brand.

I shall be reading Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” this week and reminding myself of my values to support the little dudes, not the giants. Just how on earth do I expect Jake to be deprogrammed if I, a sane(ish) adult woman of sound mind, cannot?