(Ran first in Louisiana Gannett papers Sunday October 25, 2020.  Also, we just finished watching Game 6: The Rays have a chance to win it all next year; Tab doesn’t.)

Bad news for all you Tab drinkers out there—and yes, I’m talking to all three of you.

After a 57-year run, Tab is going 10-toes-up. Lost its fizz and flatlined—although with Tab, how could you know? A fresh one tasted like an old one.

Coca-Cola has discontinued its first-ever diet soda, an “underperforming” product that has been eliminated. Like many other companies in the dog-eat-dog food and beverage world, Coke is streamlining and figuring out ways to more efficiently push its upper-tier products.

No longer room for the Tabs of the world.

It was so-named for people “keeping tabs” on their weight. Seems like people that clever could have figured out a way to make it taste better.

The news, of course, is bad for some people. Terrible. It means the guy on the assembly line who put in the bitter taste and the guy on the assembly line who put in the metallic aftertaste are out of jobs.

And we should have a moment of silence for the legion of fans who, despite their devotion, could not keep a product they loved afloat. I’m sure Coca-Cola kept it around for a few years after its life cycle just for the customers who’d loved it for so long.

But most of us fall into the category of “If you ever drank a Tab, then you probably never drank another one.” There is a reason it’s been put out to the pasture to stroll mindlessly about with the Pepsi Blue, Orange Slice, Flintstone Push-up Pops, and Squeez-Its of this unforgiving world.

When Tab debuted in 1963—an answer to the first diet soda, Diet Rite from the Royal Crown Company—it was embraced by a soft-drink-loving, getting-thick-in-the-middle populace. Tab commercials were the norm when I was growing up.

My own personal mother knocked back her share of Tabs back in the day as a twentysomething mother of three. She wasn’t big enough to be on a diet, but when you have a diet drink option instead of the real thing, shouldn’t you drink that?

She has blocked those memories now, but I see the occasional Tab can on the kitchen counter in my little-boy mind. A six-pack would sneak into the icebox now and then. I’m sure one day she took a gulp, wondered why she was torturing herself, said something like “Who wants to lose weight THIS bad?” and said goodbye to Tab with caloric enthusiasm.

Anyway, that was a lot of refreshing gulps of other drinks ago. Momma’s a Diet Spriter now.

One old friend of mine has for years worn his love of Tab like a badge of carbonated honor. He’d buy the 2-liter bottles sometimes. He got hooked, he said, so he could be sure that no one would ever lift a soft drink from his refrigerator.

And they never have. Tab is to good soft drink lovers like garlic, sunlight, mirrors, and the threat of a stake through the heart are to vampires. Run ’em off every time.

Once Diet Coke came on the scene in 1982, Tab’s days were numbered. Even now, as the sun sets, some Tab fans are buying the last cases of their favorite drink, hoarding them like we ravaged the toilet paper aisle in March.

Can’t blame them. I haven’t had an A&W Root Beer at an actual standing A&W Root Beer stand in years. But if I heard they were discontinuing them, I’d go find one and drink until my kidneys burned, then ask how much they’d let me take home.

Hard to believe, but one man’s A&W Root Beer in a frosty mug is another man’s Tab.

To each his own.

That said, we’re sorry, Tab drinkers. We feel your pain. On the bright side, as Tab always did, its extinction will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

And so, in your honor, we lift a frosty mug as a final toast…

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