Celsius

I drank a can of Celsius today. A “next-gen” energy drink, per the marketing.

Celsius was not my first choice (that would be fountain Diet Coke, pebble ice, half a fresh lime). Alas, the corporate soda machine was broken. All soda was fizzless.

Which, of course, is unacceptable. Undrinkable. Civilization must have standards.

It was not my second choice, either. That would have been settling for a cold can of Diet Coke, nowhere to be found in this particular corporate fridge on this particular day. Oh, how we learn to complain about free things…

Nor would it be my third choice, if I’m honest. That would be coffee, which I don’t drink for reasons that, at this point, seem as habitual and mildly inexplicable as they are religious. (Insert “I can’t. I’m Mormon” t-shirt here. Insert also Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Toffee Crunch which I consume a few times a year, not entirely because but very definitely because my faith-filled mother also loves coffee ice cream and will most certainly be up there in heaven, if and when any of the rest of us make it there. This is not an essay about my integrity or my mental gymnastics or the holelessness of every decision I make.)

Anyway.

This was purely a decision rooted in expediency.

The expediency being that I am embarrassingly caffeine-dependent. In my younger years, I mocked the Diet Coke Moms. Side eyes galore. Since having kids and embarking on the ongoing sleep deprivation study that is parenting, I have eaten my words and drank my Diet Coke. And then some.

So yes, I still needed a kick. A “pick-me-up” as Grandma Garff used to say.

Opening the corporate fridge, I looked at the corporate options, relatively Mother Hubbard-esque after the long Thanksgiving break.

No Diet Coke. No purple stuff. No Sunny Delight. The tyranny!

There was, as you can guess from my topic sentence up there, a clump of Celsius cans, each promising—per the marketing—a clean energy boost, metabolic acceleration, no sugar or aspartame, the burning of body fat!

I paused and imagined the sizzling sound. Sssssss. The burning of that fat. The smell was not pleasant, no matter how imaginary.

Snapping back to reality, I perused the available options, finally grabbing Sparkling Kiwi Guava. I cannot defend the choice. I will not. But I will say this:

It sparkled plenty but tasted of neither kiwi nor guava but rather

…jet fuel

Not that I’ve tasted jet fuel per se. Just that I imagine it would taste like this—synthetic-ish, harsh, stomach-turning, petrochemical, un-fruity, gaseous.

That flavor profile aligns with other energy drinks I’ve consumed (my road trip go-to is Monster + sunflower seeds during stretches where the whole family is likely to doze off and I, the driver, cannot). Decidedly undelicious, utterly unsatisfying.

Not that that stopped me from finishing the whole can. Which I did. I did not, to be clear, eat the actual can. Please don’t take that sentence so literally. I do not eat the watermelon rind. I do not eat the banana peel. And I do not eat the aluminum cans that host my beverages. Yes, I know that the Navajo tribe used every part of the buffalo. I cannot defend my choice. I will not defend my choice. But I will say this:

Today I learned that a can of Celsius is packing a whopping 200 mg of caffeine compared to traditional energy drink Red Bull’s not-un-whopping 80 mg.

The nausea. The jitters. It all makes sense now.

This stuff is supposed to be clean energy, per the marketing. I don’t feel particularly clean.

I should probably just drink more water.

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