I need caffeine in the morning.  Yes, I know no one “needs” caffeine.  I know I *can* do without it.  But I don’t wanna.

Years ago, when I was about 50 pounds heavier, I would get up in the middle of the night, go to the refrigerator, and chug a cold can of Coca-Cola, and go right back to bed.  I suppose it wasn’t really the caffeine I was after, but rather the sugar.  I don’t know how many I would drink on an average day back then, but if I had to guess I think maybe 3-4.  Compared to some people’s soda addictions, I guess that wasn’t terrible.

Over the years, I’ve cut way back.  But I’ve never been able to completely kick the soda-in-the-morning habit.  When Rubies and I were setting up our roommate agreement, I’m pretty sure the first rule was:  Don’t drink the last cold Coke.  (Also, don’t let us run out of toilet paper.)

Sometime in 2014, I came across the Mountain Dew Kickstart line of soda.  I can’t remember what flavor anymore, but it was before they introduced my beloved Limeade. It may have been orange, but that seems wrong, because generally, I hate all things flavored orange (that’s another story, related to years of having to swallow many children’s aspirin on a daily basis most of my childhood).  Maybe it was fruit punch, but I’ve never been a huge fan of that either (I think they put orange flavoring in fruit punch… ick.)

I liked it, though, because it didn’t have the aftertaste I usually noticed in artificially sweetened beverages, and a 16-ounce can only had 80 calories.  I didn’t like it as much as Coke, but it worked in a pinch.  I would grab one now and then when I was at a gas station, but I wasn’t going out of my way to get them.

Then one morning, I noticed a new flavor!  Limeade.  Prior to this, I was neutral to Mountain Dew.  I liked it fine, I might have one if it was offered or if nothing else was available, but it certainly wasn’t my go-to.  But I thought I might like it better than whatever flavor I’d been drinking up to this point.

I was addicted within weeks.  And they were expensive!  And you couldn’t buy them by the carton, only individually – even at Wal-Mart!  They were kind of a pain in the ass to come by, actually.

Certain gas stations had them periodically for 99¢.  The cashiers at the local Moto-Mart began referring to me as “The Kickstart Lady”.  I would come in every weekend and buy up the following week’s supply, making sure I had one for at least every morning I’d be home.  I told myself that, if the time came that I couldn’t find them for 99¢, I wouldn’t buy them.

Early mornings, when I was heading to the airport at 4 a.m., I’d scrounge the bottom of my purse for enough change, hands shaking like a crack addict, almost shouting out in joy when I realized I had the $1.89 I’d need to finance my fix.  That’s more than the 99¢ budget I’d put myself on, but holy hell, it was 4 a.m.!  I’d already been up since 3 a.m.!  I deserved it!  And it was only 80 calories!

Earlier this year, I started noticing the Limeade flavor being harder and harder to come by.  If I found it, I would buy the store out, even if I had a full week’s stock in the fridge already.  Something was wrong, I could sense it!

I told Rubies I was having trouble finding it.

She seemed concerned.  Gently, she interposed, “I don’t know, Ginger.  Maybe this will be a good thing for you.”

For the last two weeks, I’ve been completely unable to find it.  I was at a U-Gas when the Pepsi delivery man was there, so I asked him, “Hey, what’s up with the Limeade Kickstart?”

“What’s that?  Limeade what?”

“The one in the green can.”

“Hmmm.  The only one we have in a green can is, like watermelon.”

“NO NO NO!  The one that’s flavored like Mountain Dew.  The one in the deep delicious-looking green can!”

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.  No, they replaced that with Mango-Lime.”

So, my spidey-senses were right…

And according to this, it was discontinued in the United States in March 2017.  Now, you can only get in Australia.

I thought about ordering it from Australia, surely there’s a way to do that.  But that would be ridiculous.

It WOULD be ridiculous, right?  I definitely shouldn’t do that.  Right?  Right?

With that, I will leave you with my favorite Dan Seals song, which happens to be about a different sort of addiction: