Some people are allergic or sensitive to wheat gluten. Gluten is this globby goo that binds bread together. I guess I can understand why it would make people sensitive - eating it in its natural form would be like eating a racquetball that’s been in the microwave – but I really like it. I like rolls – hot rolls with butter – and biscuits with butter. Some people can’t eat butter, either, because they can’t digest dairy products. Generally speaking, dairy products are things made from the milk of cows. Also – speaking generally again – the people who can’t eat dairy are often the same people who can’t eat gluten. I can’t drink full-sugar pop, so I can empathize.

Pop is what people like me[1] call soda, or Coke.

There are two types of people in the world: those who claim that there are only two types of people in the world and those who understand how ridiculous that statement is.

If I drink full-sugar pop I’ll boot. That’s not a metaphor. I will literally boot the entire contents back into the can almost as soon as I drink it. The can will be full, as if nobody had ever even had it in his stomach.

I doubt you’ll have much experience with pop. Gramma Sue kept a lot of it in the house when I was your age.[2] I drank a lot of it. I also threw up a lot. Anyway, your mother and I don’t keep pop around, so you’ll have to get it at your friends’ houses, or at school. We’re not anti-pop, exactly, we just don’t care for it. This is also why you might not have much experience with beef jerky. I just don’t have the taste for it.

In any case, pop sensitivity is not recognized by any medical association, and I’m not going to fight for its recognition. Like I said, I don’t really care for pop – perhaps because it makes me boot – but still.

But I love bread and butter, and those poor suckers who can’t eat it are some sad sonsabitches.

           



[1] Simpletons from certain areas of the Midwest.
[2] Assuming your between the ages of 0 and 18 when you read this.