Dear Natural Light Beer,

By the time you read this letter, your cardboard box will be rotting in a landfill. I've cleared you out of my refrigerator – and my life – because our relationship is over.

I know this may come as a shock after so many years together. You were my first drink, someone I came to love as a minor because my 7-Eleven friends Najeeb and Khalique would sell you to me for $4.99. That was the right price in 1993. Hell, it was the right price last month, too.

But those days are over, my love.

I know it's not fair to blame other people for my problems, but dude, you make me fat. All the dieting and exercise I tried would not fight your caloric heft, and my body blossomed. I even took on some of your traits: My backside has the dimensions of a beer truck.

Many years ago, the Southern Comfort distillery gave Janis Joplin a fur coat for her devotion to and promotion of their product. As much as I have mentioned you in my columns and conversations, I was expecting as much. But, no. Not even a squirrel stole, you miserly bastard.

There's also the matter of money. While you are priced in the "hobo seeking a beverage" category, even that got expensive after 15 years.

I've since come up with an idea for a late-night infomercial to help me recoup costs, and I shall call it The Glorious Gut Expansion: Natty Light in Action. I'm still working out the details, including how to find an audience with impaired taste buds, but when it happens, I intend to market it big.

More important than my ass or money, though, is how you made me behave. How can I explain to my most recent ex that my 2 a.m. relationship rants were your fault? Or apologize to my fuzzy cat for spilling an entire can of you on her fur coat? How embarrassing.

I hope you will pass this note along to your friends, Target box wine and rot-gut vodka, because I am done with them, too. I am fully engaged in a new addiction to Diet Sunkist, and it is treating me with much more love than you guys ever did.

I hope you can understand my need to say these things. I know you will make some other woman happy. At least until she goes on a diet, balances her checkbook, or acts like a freak in public.

Go make someone else crazy,

Leah

Natty Light can write Leah back at lashafer@gmail.com.