The Hodags and Grammys Say You've Reached Top End

On the eve of Father's Day I wonder if I should call my dad and tell him I wrote another book, and it's on the walls of a museum.

Nah. I'm good. 

As for my guys, everyone got in a motor home this afternoon and headed to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, home of the Hodag. 

I couldn't go for health reasons. The reason being I hate to sleep on the ground.

I got a copy of the Dungeons and Dragon 5th Edition Player's Handbook today, and I've been invited to join a D and D group, so I might read it over the next few days.

I also have a bag of the fun size Baby Ruth bars a twelve pack of Tab Cola. None of that is a good idea, but my good ideas don't seem to go anywhere, either, so maybe a few bad ideas are what is in order. 

Hope it storms like hell tonight, but not up in Rhinelander. Also, I hope the Hodags aren't out.

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There's No Lower Life Form Than a Tab Cola Hoarder

Harvey Birdman enjoys a Tab Cola

There is no lower form of life than a Tab Cola hoarder. Here in Northern Illinois, it has become commonplace for people to overreact to any weather event by raiding the shelves of every supermarket of foodstuffs such as bread and milk. But what type of sadistic bastard uses one day of subzero degree temperatures to deplete the shelves of Tab Cola? I used to drink Tab Cola every day. I may even go so far as to admit I had a little problem. If I went to bed knowing I did not have a Tab Cola to wake up to, I worried. Eventually I decided it was unreasonable to let any substance have that type of power over me, so I stopped drinking it. Now I have a twelve pack every other weekend. This is my Tab Cola weekend. This is also the coldest week coming up in forty years, and thusly some Tabaholic drained the shelves of the local market where I normally get my supply. I found this out a mere six hours ago when Jenny returned from the store with the jelly donuts that go with my Tab Cola, but no Tab Cola.

What kind of a monster does this? The Packers were kind enough to get swept out of the NFL playoffs for my amusement this afternoon. But I couldn't enjoy it the way I should have. All I could think of was some jackwagon cracking open a can of Tab soda while the field goal that sunk the Packers sailed through the uprights. 

Now I settle for a cup of Earl Gray tea and wonder why, why did someone do this. I hope you leave your Tab Cola out in the cold, and it freezes and explodes. And then you get down in the show and start licking it up. You son of a bitch.

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Groovy Tab Cola Clock

Tab Cola Clock

Look at this groovy Tab Cola clock. I have been. Imagine what it would be like to know what we all know now about antiques, and to be able to go back to the 1980's and just drive around to garage sales buying a bunch of junk no one really foresaw would be worth a small fortune in a couple of decades. As it is now, you're lucky not to be bidding against seven people for any lot of junk anyone throws out there and labels as a treasure.

One of the more fun aspects of collecting, as opposed to picking, is the hunt. See, I know now I will eventually own a Tab Cola clock like this, and place it on the wall of my study, which I do not have yet, either. Last week I did not know this. My list of must-have items had dwindled. I overpaid for many of them because I buy on Ebay, but I got the nicest examples available. I can envision my study as it will one day look when completed. Although it will never entirely be completed. There can be no other clock in that study. 

I'm coming to terms with the very great possibility that I will be an old man for a lot longer than I ever anticipated. Even two months ago I was starting to feel my expiration date getting closer and closer. I have to be careful what I collect, for it will surround me for a long time. It will come to define me. And I will start to resemble it. Not sure pink is my color, or how I even came to be this obsessed with Tab Cola. Hopefully this item will linger on Ebay until after Christmas. It will be the next thing I add to my collection.  Pin It

The Day The Tab Cola Died

I just did the unthinkable, and poured a half a case of Tab Cola down the drain. Well, nearly half a case, as I relented at the last second and opened the last can, and am now enjoying it as write this blog. Such an act would have been considered treasonous to my own self-identity only a few weeks ago, but post heart surgery, lapses in discipline in diet and lifestyle can result in far more serious consequences than a stomach ache or a hangover. Yet after finishing my second week of cardiac rehab this afternoon, and really feeling mighty after pushing myself past my limits on the bike, I felt like celebrating with a twelve pack of Tab Cola and a bag of Entenmann's cinnamon donuts. I knew it was a bad idea, after really being faithful with my diet this month, but I just couldn't bring myself to consider a can of club soda and a piece of fruit as a celebration this time. I was, however, in control of my runaway appetite for destruction just enough to wish there was such a thing as a six pack of Tab Cola here in Illinois, as there was at Randall's in Houston. But since there isn't, I was forced to buy the full twelve pack.

Pouring five cans of Tab Cola down the drain, after remembering the early years when Tab returned to the shelves here, and finding it was sometimes a wild goose chase, seemed like a damn shame, but a stomach ulcer that I am virtually incapable of surviving due to the fact that my blood no longer clots seemed even more of a foolish proposition, so I started the uncomfortable task of opening and dispensing my favorite elixir on the planet into the drain. I managed to get five emptied. But the sixth and last one was too much to ask, even for a reformed tab addict. I opened it and decided if five wouldn't kill me, six wouldn't, either. 

I hope I'm right. Pin It

Why I Love a Tab Cola

My uncle used to come over to our house on Friday nights after the work week at the factory had ended and have a few rum and Cokes with my dad, who was the foreman of the factory. They'd yak about work and get more intoxicated, and eventually my uncle would start telling stories about when he was in the Navy which were so dirty me and my brother had to go to bed.

Sometimes he'd bring Tab Cola instead of Coca Cola. I'm not sure why he did. He may have had undiagnosed diabetes. I remember how the pink cans stood out. from the beginning they mesemerized me. And I'd wait all night as his drinks got stronger and stronger, pouring less and less of the delicious nectar in to dilute the rum. Rarely would I be so presumptuous as to ask for a can, or bottle, outright, and to my horror he sometimes used all of it, or worse, took it with him. But many times he left some for me.

That's what it looked like. I was captivated.

Then Tab Cola disappeared. I guess I didn't notice that much because I loved Coca Cola. Years went by, and I moved to Chicago. One day I walked in to the Dominics on Chicago Avenue and there it was... Tab Cola. After many years off the market the Coca Cola corporations has quietly re-introduced Tab Cola to the American people.

Sales were ok, but not good. Coca Cola even threatened to discontinue production of Tab Cola, but a funny thing happened: fans of Tab Cola went insane, and flooded Coca Cola with petitions, letters, and phone calls. Tab Cola remained on the shelves. The market share was small, but Coca Cola learned it was profitable because no advertising was required. They just put it on the shelves and Tab fans snapped it up.

When I returned to Rockford Tab Cola was harder to find. It seemed I was always competing against a small group of Tab fanatics for a limited supply. I tried not to horde because I knew if it meant this much to me it probably meant the same thing to the other anonymous Tab fans I never saw but observed the effects of. I knew the disappointment of making a special trip to one supermarket instead of another only to find the last Tab Cola had been bought. 

You know what I like?

That Tab Cola.







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