The reason why soda drinkers are more depressed than coffee drinkers is obvious.

According to the research by the National Institute of Health, people who drink four cans or more of soda daily are about 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression than people who don't drink soda. Coffee drinkers are about 10 percent less likely to develop depression than people who don't drink coffee.

The NIH offers no explanation for this phenomenon, so I would like to offer my own:

Non-coffee drinkers (we are most certainly in the minority) continually find ourselves in the midst of conversations with coffee drinkers about coffee. These conversations can range from their need for the coffee, the taste of a specific brand of coffee, the cost of procurement, the location where their coffee has been purchased, the device in their home that produces coffee, the various accouterment associated with coffee and a myriad of other topics surrounding their beverage of choice.

For the non-coffee drinker, these constant bits of communication about a beverage can often amount to a verbal assault on our auditory senses.

Of course soda drinkers are depressed.

We feel left out of these conversations. We find ourselves isolated. We are  in many ways cultural outcasts. We watch drive by dozens of Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and independently own coffee shops each day, knowing that these are places that bring coffee drinkers so much joy, and yet we find no solace in their interminable presence. They exist as continual, concrete reminders of an ever-growing aspect of our culture from which we are excluded.

Of course we are depressed.  

Most, though, we worry about the future of a culture that makes coffee a primary topic of conversation on a regular basis.

You think I’m kidding, coffee drinkers. You think I’m being facetious.

I’m not.

You never shut up about the stuff.

Of course soda drinkers are depressed.