Dear Coke Zero,
There are some things you need to know about my upbringing, Coke Zero. I had one of those fruit-is-nature's-candy mothers. Actually, let me rephrase that. My mother came of age in the 70s, a time of macrame owls, burnt orange and virulently horrible food. Hers was a generation that discovered 'ethnic' cooking, dietary fibre, the hors d'oeuvre, miniature gherkins, cauliflower cheese and how a 1950s diet of steak, salt and butterfat might just give you a coronary. Still. She grew up in rural Western Australia, CWA territory, and retained certain ideas about what a wholesome diet for a growing child might be.

As a result my sister and I were raised on thoroughly middle-class diet of polite culinary adventurousness tempered with provincial common sense. When I was very small I didn't like to eat, well, anything, and I have vivid memories of my mother forcing me to drink egg flips, a drink made with, get this, raw egg, in order to get some healthful protein into me. When we were allowed soft drinks my mother would carefully decant a few mouthfuls into a glass, and we weren't allowed more than one. There are at least two effects of such an upbringing. Firstly, when no one's looking, I revert to a kind of orange-hued, roughage-filled Margaret Fulton type of cookery just to appease my inner child. Secondly, I never really developed a taste for Coke.

It wasn't a conscious thing, it just never struck me as a beverage option. Whenever I did drink Coke, or Pepsi, or Fanta, or whatever, it'd make my stomach hurt and teeth ache. It just wasn't my thing

Which is why it's so strange, Coke Zero, that now, when I'm at my quiet, two days a week office job, I can't get enough of you. It started a few months back when I felt particularly wrecked on a Sunday morning. I knew there was a particularly elderly vending machine in the basement, but had paid it no mind. Suddenly I realised that vending machine contained vital caffeine. From there, an obsession began. Suddenly, Coke Zero, I can't get through my few hours in the office without you. As soon as I sit at my desk I begin to crave your bubbling, acid sweetness. But only in the office, nowhere else. When I'm not at work I don't even think about you. It's almost like I'm some kind of beverage sex tourist, using a temporary change of location to indulge my secret, illicit urges.

I don't get it, Coke Zero. I'm a non-Coke drinking, nice, rather WASPish girl most of the time. Why do you have to taunt me like this? Why do you have to tarnish my phenylaline-free insides? Why you gotta hurt me so good, Coke Zero?

Yours in secrecy,
Rachael.