Pssst, kid.

Yeah, you there on the playground. Want to see what I’ve got?

Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, 7-Up. Bottles. Pop-tops. Twelve-packs.

The real deal, yo.

Sugar. Caffeine. All that stuff the health crazies don’t want you drinking. Buy it now, dude, because the big ban is coming.

Before you know it, sodas on public school grounds will be history, or at least the ones you buy from the machine.

I know, it’s harsh, man.

But the bigs that run things think you’re too fat. As in tubgantic. And they’ve decided that yanking Yoo-Hoo out of the machine in the front hallway is going to change things.

By the 2008-09 school year, all your spare change will score at the elementary and middle school level is unsweetened fruit juice, low-fat milk, and water.

In high school, you’ll get diet soda.

Yum.

The folks intent on killing your high-fructose corn syrup buzz are hung up on numbers. They’re freaking over statistics coming out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Mayo Clinic (which, by the way, has nothing to do with mayonnaise).

According to those researchers, the average teenager slurps up to 250 to 325 calories a day in soda, each can being loaded with about 10.5 teaspoons of sugar. They say that’s a big reason the number of obese kids waddling around America doubled between 1980 and 2000.

So no soda at school and – presto! – skinny kids tomorrow. Crazy, I know. But that’s how they think.

Like you can’t just go down the street and hook yourself up with a big fat Fanta. Like you don’t know people like me who can keep you supplied.

Root Beer. Grape. I’ve got it.

Pepsi. Mystic. Nehi. Just ask, and it’s yours.

Too bad this whole thing was announced just before summer vacation. Because if you ever needed an A-plus topic for a history paper, this is it. Can you spell Prohibition?

Google it.

Once upon a time – like, way before cable – the government thought it could stop adults from drinking alcohol by making it illegal. For real.

And guess what happened? People smuggled it. People hoarded it. People went to secret hangouts and secret parties where they openly indulged.

Duh.

Now, I’m no psychic, but I’ll bet you a case of Sprite that history will repeat itself. Before you know it, you and your crew will be congregating underneath the stadium bleachers, doing the Dew.

You’ll be flocking into the bathroom between classes to take a hit from some premium IBC.

Districts will install carbonation detectors at the schoolhouse door, and sic teams of soda-sniffing hounds on suspicious lockers.

There’ll be root beer busts, and cream soda expulsions.

It’ll be ugly business, my friend. Very ugly.

But you don’t need to get stuck in all that mire. Not if you stock up now.

I’ll even give you the first six-pack for free. But, trust me, in many more ways than one, the rest will cost you.