I'm a Coke man. No, I don't mean I'm into drugs. I mean I've long loved the beverage Coca-Cola. I can tolerate Pepsi, but prefer Coke.

A couple of weeks ago I was wondering, "Just HOW many flavors of Coca-Cola are out right now?" So I got a different 20 oz. bottle at the cafeteria for several days. Like many beverage container collectors I washed out and saved the empty bottles then lined them up along one edge of my desk at work.

I wound up with 10:

Coca-Cola Classic **
Diet Coke **
Diet Caffeine-Free Coke
Coca-Cola with Lime
Diet Coke with Lime **
Coca-Cola Zero
Cherry Coke **
Vanilla Coke **
Diet Coke make with Splenda sweetener
Coca-Cola C2

(** - These bottles had the look-under-the-cap contest that they have every summer.)

And now these bottles will all be thrown away as I clean out my cube. None of us have been fired; it's to take care of a cockroach problem we've had in this part of the office for about a year. They'll be a-fumin' the place.

Some other Coke variations I've had in the past: New Coke, Coke II, Caffeine-Free (yet not Diet) Coke, and some Cokes or Diet Cokes made with Nutra Sweet, plus one I got in Hawaii which had a tiny "Made with Hawaiian Sugar Cane" seal.

Some people seem to forget why Coke is called "Coca-Cola Classic". That was made to distinguish it from "New Coke" which came on to the scene some 20 years ago and then, if you'll pardon the horrible pun, fizzed out. "Coke II" was only around for a brief time around '97, I think. Growing up, my house was usually stocked with the Caffeine-Free Diet cans, which I drank because it was usually the only soda in the house.

I do really like the taste of C2, which is why I get it on occasion. But I have to wonder why they introduced "Coke Zero" if they already had "Diet Coke". After comparing the labels, it seems that Coke Zero has additional ingredients. Go figure.

I found out the hard way when I was a kid that you make your own vanilla cokes with vanilla SYRUP. Adding vanilla EXTRACT doesn't do it.

Finally, if you get some mass-forwarded emails telling you a list of Coke "facts", don't believe it.