Tab is alive and well (in the Midwest, anyway)

Contrary to popular belief, Tab is alive and well and, apparently, thriving here in the Midwest. It sounds like it is long gone in NYC as Ellen Emerson White swears it does not exist any longer and is deleting all references to it in her reissues of the Meg books due out next year. This makes me sad as the Tab references are just one of those fun, quirky things that are just part of Meg's personality and it'll be weird to read the books with her drinking just plain Coke.

I don't know when Tab disappeared from nationwide distribution, but I know it was still around in California when I lived there 10 years ago, and in the decade since I have relocated to Ann Arbor I have seen it (and purchased it) numerous times from multiple grocery stores here in Michigan. I haven't been back to California in a long time, so I don't know if it's disappeared out there (will have to ask my mom to check), but I've seen it quite a lot out here. Pretty much every time I go through a re-reading jag of the Meg books I have to grab some Tab from the store and play the Tab Drinking Game.

As Clara Bow and I have been re-reading the Meg books we, of course, had to buy a 12 pack of Tab. I stopped by the Busch's in Pinckney last weekend while fence building (more on that later) to use their restroom and picked up a 12 pack of Tab to thank them for the use of their free public restroom. Clara decided she had to model the Tab as proof that it is still around and exists. So these photos are for Ellen to show that, yes, Tab does still exist, even if it has become something of a regional drink, similar to my beloved Cactus Cooler which I miss terribly. To prove that I am not using old stock photos of Tab I have also included my copy of the terrible, recent reprint version of Long Live the Queen and my 3 year old pup.

In the photo below Mack was trying to squeeze his way in and join in on our quality "girl" time by attempting to snatch either the book, the Tab, or both. Clara can't have that noisy Husky taking over her quality time with Mom, so here she is protectively guarding her book and Mom's soda.

And, yes, I am a total dork, but Clara loves it when I read aloud to her, so it's one of our hobbies. She loves and is fascinated by human, especially female, voices and adores it when I read aloud to her. We hit upon this idea as a compromise which allows her to get as much quality time as she wants and still allows me to spend quality time with my collection of 500+ books.

And, yes, Mack gets lots of quality time, too, but he's too OCD to really sit and snuggle with a book for long periods of time like Clara, so our quality time is more likely to be spent chasing squirrels or power walking, Husky-style, doing agility, or playing fetch.