Trying to hack out my first soda-free day went surprisingly well until the middle of the afternoon. I drank about 36 ounces of water, and only missed the sweet taste a little.

Okay, it was a lot. An awful lot, actually. No matter how many times you drink it, water doesn’t taste good. It just tastes like wet. I think I drank so much because I kept hoping that the next sip would be sweeter. It wasn’t.

Around 3 pm, things went rapidly south. I started to have trouble focusing on the screen in front of me. Blinking turned into several seconds of closing my eyes, and my head took on a definite downward trajectory.

I tried getting up and walking around, but it didn’t really help. There’s a limit to how vigorously one can exercise in an office suite shared with 20 other people. So, I gave up and shuffled over to the soda machine for a 12 ounce can of cola.

Even though I failed, I’m calling it a partial victory. I just about halved my average daily consumption, and didn’t actually fall asleep for more than a few seconds. These are the only marks in my win column, people. Let me enjoy my pathetic accomplishments.

After another not-so-hot night’s sleep, I once again gave in to the sweet siren song of soda. It was a fountain drink, so I loaded up on ice. I feel approximately 34% less guilty than I would have without ice.

This quick sketch sums up my day before that. Beware of impossibly exciting shenanigans.

I haven’t been writing about my battles with caffeine (and empty calories) lately because there hasn’t been anything to report. I’m sure a better writer could have made almost two weeks of nothing into something interesting. Maybe made a point about how mundane struggles and small, uninspiring moments eventually add up to a life story. If only I was one of those “talented” people you hear so much about.

Like I said, it was a whole lot of nothing. There weren’t any inspiring victories. I didn’t manage to climb a mountain, cure Cancer, or completely kick the soda habit. I cut down a good deal, but it wasn’t anybody’s idea of cold turkey. My poultry products were lukewarm at best.

Unfortunately (for narrative purposes, anyway), there also weren’t any dramatic reversals. I didn’t wake up in the doorway of an abandoned theater with an empty three-liter bottle of store brand cola jammed up my ass and a two day hole in my memory. I didn’t knock over a delivery truck, drive it out onto the desert and snort soda syrup until I induced diabetes. I had a couple of cans here and there, but I didn’t fall back into my old (two weeks ago) soda-drinkin’ ways.

Until yesterday.

A few days of hot, swampy Philadelphia weather, a noisy window air conditioner and some stress-related aches and pains conspired to keep me from sleeping very well. I survived all weekend on grape juice and water, but coming back to work on Monday was the (really badass) straw that took out a 10 pound sledgehammer and pulverized the camel’s spine. I fell off the wagon. Into a ravine. Where I promptly drowned in a river of high fructose corn syrup.

As we speak, I am draining the last drops of a fountain soda that I got with my routine sandwich. The neglected sweet sensors in my tongue are buzzing with excitement, as I’ve kept them at speed for about 24 hours now. I have to convince myself that this is a temporary setback, rather than proof that I’m too weak to change even this small facet of my (shallow as a pond in a drought) character.

Crap. I just realized that this actually is the most interesting thing happening in my brainpuddings right now. How sad.