The day I had

There were no cold diet Dr. Peppers at the house this morning, the convenient "fridge pack" box sitting open on the lowest pantry shelf. I pulled out a can and stuck it in my gray hobo-style purse, next to my camera, for the car ride to work. As soon as I had unlocked that metal and glass door and dropped off my laptop on a pile of papers on my desk, I put the soda in the freezer for half an hour thinking I'd drink it as a mid-morning wake up call. At about 11:45, when I finally looked up from my keyboard, I gasped and ran for the freezer, hoping against hope that the can hadn't exploded and that I wasn't going to have to spend an hour scrubbing frozen cola off the inside of the cold white box. Luckily it was intact, but it was also surprisingly heavy and hard. Frozen through and through. I moved it to the fridge door, thinking I'd have it as a 3 pm pick-me-up instead. After a sad little cheese sandwich scarfed down for lunch between emails and conference calls, at about 2:30 I was craving that diet Dr. Pepper, fiending for it, feeling the bubbles popping on my tongue with that caramel cola swishing around, the caffeine invigorating my brain for the last couple hours of work. But upon my arrival at the fridge door, I found it still as solid as a rock. I moved it my window sill, in the sun, believing by 4 it would be drinkable, but the sun only made it sweat, creating a large puddle I then had to mop up. Still fretting over my stone-like aluminum can holding in all the goodness I had been needing for the last eight hours, I tried to open it but found it wouldn't budge. I put it back in the fridge at half past five when I finally left for the day. I'm hoping by nine tomorrow morning I will be allowed finally to drink. But I'm taking another can with me, one of the few I slid into my home fridge this morning from that narrow box, just in case.