Tragedy Strikes, leaving sugar-free cola defamed and ashamed

Recently my roommate Adrienne sent me a link. This link marks an important but unfortunate development in my domestic study journey. It seems that observational science has brought a correlation to light that threatens to devastate the sanctity of one of the key sources of sustenance in the community here: Roundy's Brand Diet Cola.

First, a little background. When I first tried Roundy's Brand Diet Cola I thought it kind of tasted like soda, but it also kind of tasted faintly of turpentine (yes, i have tasted turpentine, dwai). Despite this, I quickly acquired a taste for it, probably because of all the positive experiences I associated it with. it was an impetus for social gatherings, I used it most weekend nights to cleanse my pallet of even worse-tasting beverages, and its ritualistic consumption helped foment the special and unbreakable bonds that I've formed with my roommates. It was a prolific cultural staple. Though I've never been south of the border myself, I imagine that Roundy's Brand Diet Cola is for my house what Yerba Mate is for Argentina.



To get back to the point, the article reported that a study of 2,500 adults over the course of 10 years revealed that those who drank diet soda daily had a 48% higher risk of stroke or heart attack than non-soda-drinkers or regular-soda-drinkers.

http://www.newser.com/story/111738/diet-sodas-dark-side-heart-attacks-strokes.html

The implications of these findings are devastating. Though the experimental group consisted of self-described "daily drinkers," I would wager that they are more like pack-a-week type smokers while we are at the pack-or-two-a-day level. I also doubt that most of these participants were devoutly consuming questionable generic brands. It seems likely that the above-average shadiness of our soda brand compounds our risk. Realizing the gravity of this study, we now find all our happy times past tainted by the notion that they might have helped facilitate our premature demise.