Diet Coke The New IED!

Yup, you heard it right, cans of Diet Coke could be used by Iraqi insurgents to attack the US military. Diet Coke can be used as an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), I know this for a fact because a Diet Coke attacked me yesterday.


Jan and I went grocery shopping and we picked up a 12 pack of the stuff. They have changed the packaging of the 12 packs "in order to make them fit better in a refrigerator" the Coke official apologizer told me.

Anyway Jan was trying to open this damn thing. As you can see in the picture above there is a yellow flap on the end that you are supposed to pull off. Jan could not get the thing to budge, this type of design I refer to as adult proofing.


Being the gallant guy that I am I tell her to stand back and let me do it. I grab the yellow tab firmly and pull it the direction indicated. There is a hissing sound, followed by a sharp pain in my thumb! "That's odd" I think to myself, and pull my hand out. Hmm wonder where all that blood came from?


One of the cans had exploded, leaving metal as sharp as any damn razor blade.

So what is a guy going to do under these circumstances? The answer was obvious, first order of business was to stem the blood flow. Next, a quick trip to the store to get some Band-Aids.

Having performed triage on myself I was ready to shout at someone. Being the Internet weenie that I am, I went to the Coke site, found a comment form, and let em have it!

Within 10 minutes I received a reply asking for more details, and about 10 minutes after that the phone rang. It was the official Coke apologizer from Vancouver, BC. She offered some truly interesting insights into the art to damage control.

Rule number 1, regardless of what the problem is, the problem is not with the product! It was not the Coke that had a problem, it was the CO2 in the Coke!

Her advice was that in the future I should ignore the big yellow tab that says 'open here', and open the package from the other end!

So, there you have it from the horses mouth, if you buy a 12 pack of Diet Coke, the official Coke recommendation is to ignore the big yellow sign that says open here, and open the package from the other end!

Oh, and for my pain and suffering Coke are sending me some complementary 12 packs! I'll be opening them with a howitzer from a safe distance of about 15 miles!

From now on I am sticking to beer, I have never had a beer try to kill me!