The Holiest of Messages are Always Delivered Via Diet Coke

Back in the day, God might send a message through a burning bush.  But it’s 2011, baby!  These days, God seems to be sending us messages through burned Jesus faces in grilled cheese sandwiches or more recently – on a Walmart store receipt!   Check out www.grilledcheesejesus.com for more sightings.  God’s new way of contacting us has become so mainstream, Fox TV show Glee even had an episode named “Grilled Cheesus.”  (Can’t wait until the Glee premiere on September 20 – I love you, Ian Brennan!) 

I recently received a message that I believe is divine.  I didn’t have the Roman Catholic church come in to verify it, but I definitely feel a holy aura around this message.   And frankly I’ll take a message from my gut versus a message from the Pope any day.  (What’s that sound?  My Polish Grandmother rolling over in her grave.  Sorry Grandma!!)  Since I rarely make grilled cheese at home (I’m trying to pretend I am starch-phobic), I think God had to find another outlet to send me a message.  One more suited to my lifestyle and the ingredients in my refrigerator.

Oprah Winfrey is known for her “Aha! Moments” – a moment in life when clarity breaks through the hazy fog around our “best selves.”  At that moment when we realize something that makes us go “Aha!”, we invariably change the course of our lives due to this moment of clarity.  Personally, I wondered why Oprah didn’t continue with her branding and call it an “Ohhhh! Moment.”  I can only surmise that somewhere out there is a greedy person who trademarked “Ohhhh! Moment” thinking he/she could retire off the exorbitant licensing fees extorted from Miss Oprah Winfrey.  And that Oprah wrote them a check made out to “Greedy Bastard” and the amount line was “Zilch for you, cause I’m Oprah bitch!”  Then the Greedy Bastard looked at the check and said “Aha! Ohhhhh…..”  And the “Aha Moment” was born.   

I like to envision Oprah out there kicking ass.  Like a superhero … in cashmere.  Kicking ass.  And recommending French macaroons.  Ohhhh Oprah …

(By the way Oprah, the OWN TV Network isn’t bringing in the raves.  If you’d like a good TV show idea, call me.  Or rather have your assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the sandwich guy who brings your consulting producer’s assistant’s assistant’s assistant lunch on alternating Tuesdays call me.  And how’s the corned beef today, anyway?)

But back to the star of this blog post … Jesus.  Wait, did I just give top billing to Oprah over Jesus? Yikes.  Guilty as charged.  That’s not going to look good for me on Judgment Day.  Aha!  Ohhhh…..

It was on a Sunday when God decided to visit and smack me in the face.  I was laying on my monster huge (“Suburban Nightmare”) couch.  I remember when I was a young child and would visit my friend KP.  KP’s dad would drink 12 bottles of Old Milwaukee beer and then take a nap on the couch.  Coming from a non-drinking home, it would be many years before I realized KP’s dad was passed out, not just “napping.”  On this particular day, I had not imbibed any Old Milwaukee beer but I was nursing the mother of all hangovers from a two week bender partying with house guests.  (“Welcome to Florida, let’s get smashed!”) 

I lay on the couch, falling in and out of sleep, sprawled out with the same level of gracefulness as a turtle on its back.  I was slightly sweaty because I could not be bothered to get up and turn on the air conditioning.  Evidently laziness beats sweatiness.  I was not in good spirits.  In addition to my hangover, I was feeling down in the dumps.  Part of it was going from having a house full of guests for two weeks and then being alone in the house.   Though the larger portion was residual spiritual angst from a recent bad experience.   I try to approach the world with an open heart and generous soul.  This is particularly hard for me because I was raised in a “Don’t trust.  Don’t share.  Keep people at arm’s length” home.  As the child of a single mother (father died when I was three years old due to Agent Orange exposure serving in the US Army in Viet Nam) living in transient-style inexpensive apartments where drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse and sexual assaults abounded in the apartment units, I could understand why my non-alcohol/drug taking, full-time worker, full-time student, 100% hard working Mother deeply ingrained the “Trust No One” philosophy in me.  She barely had time for me since she was working all day and going to school at night, so I needed to depend on myself and no one else.  In many ways this attitude has served me well in my life, but understandably it has crippled me in some respects too.

On this day, I was angry with myself.  I tend to have good instincts and tend to be a good judge of character.  However, I had the let the wrong person in and they took advantage.  My open heart and generous soul was bamboozled by someone who took my generous nature for granted and expected/felt entitled to all that plus more.  I felt stupid.  I couldn’t believe I tried to help out someone I considered a friend and they took complete financial advantage.  My Mother’s “Trust No One” mantra was roaring in my ears.  I have a healthy dose of ego, so the thought that someone could think I was such a patsy/doormat/gulliable fool was too much to bear.  The former friend tried to justify his actions to me “I didn’t need to ask your permission, because I knew you’d say yes.”  Completely ridiculous.    

There I was on my couch – nursing my hangover, nursing my bruised ego.  The more I tried not to think about being a sucker; the more the thought of it raged in my ears.  I would pass in and out of sweaty sleep.  In some sort of karmic kick in the teeth, my new neighbors next door were remodeling with a vengeance.  Or perhaps staging a world war given the extreme levels of noise.  Sledgehammers pounding … pounding … POUNDING!  Thoughts of kidnapping my new neighbors’ Yorkie Poo in retaliation slowly slithered into my foggy mind.

While wallowing and plotting dog-napping, I heard a loud “BOOM!”  I muttered an angry, exasperated curse to my new neighbors.  Then a little voice whispered “I think that noise came from inside the house.”   Inside the house – the worst line from any horror movie.  I slowly sat up and looked around.  Had my wallowing sorrow come to life?  I stood up and slowly looked around.  If there was an angry ghost in the house, I didn’t want to run straight into it! 

Everything looked normal.    I looked in each room.  Then like a cheesy horror movie, the little voice inside my head said “Check the refrigerator.”  I’ve read enough cannibal true crime stories that I should have been more scared to open the refrigerator door.  But like every stupid cast member in horror movies, I threw caution to the wind.  I flung the refrigerator door open.  The sight inside was shocking. I stared into the refrigerator absolutely dumbfounded, imitating a fish out of water.  WHAT.  THE.  HELL?

A bomb had gone off in my refrigerator.  A terrorist attack?  In my refrigerator?  WHAT.  THE.  HELL?  The casualties?  Everything in my refrigerator.  A Diet Coke can had apparently frozen in the back of my refrigerator and exploded.  It bathed everything in chunks of melting brown liquid.  My refrigerator had been completely packed with drinks and leftovers from house guests and a large party.  Now everything was coated.   I was amazed at how every single surface of my refrigerator had managed to get hit with the frozen Diet Coke. 

To add insult to injury, I don’t drink Diet Coke at home.  I drink Coke Zero (nectar of the Gods) when I do drink soda.  The former friend who had bruised my ego drank Diet Coke.  He drinks so much Diet Coke, he should be the poster child for it.  Is it possible he jerry-rigged a Diet Coke can to explode in my refrigerator?  Would the fall-out from his actions ever end?

I considered closing the door and just never using my refrigerator again.  My suburban nightmare couch of bruised ego and misery was calling me.  Go back to the couch!  Forget about the fridge! 

Perhaps Oprah is haunting my kitchen, because I had my “Aha! Moment” standing there with brown puddles falling on my feet.  I could go back to my couch and feel sorry for myself or I could get on my hands and knees and start cleaning the refrigerator.  Inaction versus action.  You’re at the crossroads, baby.  Choose feeling sorry for yourself or choose to make your home a better place.  What’s it going to be?

Even though it was the absolute last thing I wanted to be doing, I chose to be active.  I grabbed paper towels and started removing the 3001 items in my refrigerator.  I rinsed off each and every condiment, soda can and beer bottle in the refrigerator.  Who knew I had so many bottles of hot sauce?  And when was the last time I checked the expiration dates on my plethora of salad dressing bottles anyway? 

As I took apart the drawers and shelves of my refrigerator, I cursed my maid service.  I had paid extra to have my refrigerator cleaned several times in the past few months and yet as I took apart the drawers and glass topped shelves I could see up close what a crap job my maid service had been doing.  And what the hell is all this lint from the bottom vent?  GROSS!  Grimy dirty bits underneath the glass.  And enough dirty lint from the bottom vent grill to make a model of a large kitten.  GROSS.  GROSS.  GROSS.

I am not someone who loves to clean; hence the aforementioned maid service.  If I was going to take apart my entire refrigerator, I was going to take the time and effort to clean it right.  I used bleach spray and cotton swabs and got into all the nooks and crannies.  I tried not to inhale the bleach spray directly.  Being found dead with my head in the refrigerator is not how I want to go out of this world. 

I saw the Diet Coke “bomb” and the refrigerator cleaning as a metaphor for my current life.  An emotional bomb went off- which sucks, but I needed to do some hard work, some spiritual cleaning, get into all the nasty grooves and rebuild myself.  God wanted me off the couch.  God wanted me to stop feeling sorry for myself and understand how lucky I am. 

After scrubbing all the internal surfaces, I went to stand up and banged my head hard against the inside of the refrigerator.  I screamed out in pain.  My head was throbbing.  I yelled out: “I GOT THE MESSAGE ALREADY!  YOU DON’T NEED TO POUND IT INTO MY HEAD!” I screamed so loud that I was sure my sledge-hammering new neighbors could hear me.

I spent a freaking ninety minutes cleaning the refrigerator.  Who knew one 12 ounce can of Diet Coke could cause so much damage?  Every time I thought I had finished, I found another brown puddle of liquid.  Scrub, wipe, scrub, wipe.  Finally, it appeared that I had cleaned all traces of the Diet Coke from the refrigerator.  Time to reassemble. 

While I was trying to put a tempered glass shelf back into the refrigerator, I somehow managed to flip it up and smack myself square in the face with it!  With face still burning (thank God it was tempered glass!), I screamed again “YES, YES – MESSAGE RECEIVED – FREAKING STOP IT ALREADY!!” 

Slowly, piece by piece, I restored my refrigerator.  I also took the opportunity to throw out stale leftovers and long past expired condiments.  By the time I finished, everything sparkled and looked properly organized.  A fresh start.  Hard work pays off. 

I turned around and knocked a bottle of Magners Pear Cider off the counter and onto the hard tile floor.  I inhaled sharply and anticipated a gigantic foamy, glass shard mess around my bare feet.  Miraculously, the bottle did not break!  The worst of it was that a small amount of liquid came out from under the bottle cap.  I thanked God that all I had to do was wipe up a little puddle of cider off the floor instead of pick up 8 million shards of broken glass.  See, God was back on my side.  After the Diet Coke explosion, slammed head and smacked face; God was pleased with my ninety minutes of intense refrigerator cleaning and had kept the Magners Pear Cider bottle from breaking.  This was my reward. 

I grabbed the bottle opener so I could open the bottle and dump out the rest of the cider.  I popped the cap off and a giant torrential rush of cider exploded, completely coating my face and chest.   I’m not sure how such a small bottle could manage to thoroughly drench the entire upper half of my body.  Evidently this was not my reward from Jesus. 

I didn’t scream this time though.  I just silently shook my head as my saturated shirt dripped cider on my kitchen floor.  I decided it was better that I not try to interpret God’s messages anymore.  Quite evidently, my Jesus Divine Messages translator is on the fritz. 

Next time, let's just stick with grilled cheese sandwiches, Jesus.  Please.  At least my refrigerator's clean!

Amen!