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I averaged it out. Turns out, I drink about a gallon of Diet Coke a day. Maybe a glass of water here or there, maybe not. My friend told me that was physically impossible, that I should be turning into dust. But I was still walking around.

However, I came to the conclusion that it probably wasn't healthy. Outside of when I'm engaged in work, I felt like I was sleep walking through the day. The bad diet didn't help.

So on Saturday afternoon, I made a decision. No more caffeine. I've done this before a few times. Once I quit for a couple weeks, and then I wanted to watch a Bears-Vikings game that I had taped. We didn't get back till 11PM, and I wasn't sure I would be able to make it through. So I drank a couple of cans of Diet Coke and didn't sleep that night. The other time I was off for a month, and had an XL Cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso on my way to work. Very productive day.

So Saturday went fine. I drank milk at dinner. Which is more milk than I've drank in about a year. Sunday wasn't so pleasant. My body figured out what was going on, and let me tell you it was pissed. Headaches, tired, and other accompanying other unpleasant side effects.

And the kids were unruly. And the house was a mess. And DearWife wanted to get the Christmas decorations up. Generally, it wasn't a great day.

On Sunday night we went to a neighborhood party. The deal is that you buy a present, and they wrap it, and have Santa come and give it to your kid.

When we got there, a couple of pals were in the basement, so I headed down to talk sports and poker. There were 15 kids running around. And one was playing the drum set. LOUDLY. I went back upstairs, but I couldn't eat or drink due to my condition.

Talked more sports with more pals. Then Santa came. All the kids sat down. Santa called their names one by one, and they got up on his lap. Our kids were broken in last week, so they were cool. DW had chosen a couple gifts for the kids.

And of course each had about 50 small pieces. I was close to lecturing her on the silliness of buying a bunch of stuff with a bunch of pieces. Thankfully, even in my reduced state of mental efficiency, I knew better.

I don't know how long I'll go without drinking caffeine. But I look at it this way: at least my tolerance will be reduced.