My gateway drug was Coke

My gateway drug was Coke
25 October 2013

Hi, my name is Helene and I’m addicted to energy drinks.  My gateway drug was Coke.

Intellectually, I know they don’t really work.  That they’re probably as accurate, scientific and helpful towards fixing depleting energy levels, as horoscopes in the daily paper are towards revealing visions about your future.  That they’re as ineffective as using a teaspoon to empty a bath.  Particularly, when you could just pull the plug instead.

Cause the real solution, to boost your energy?  The magic fix-all?

Get more sleep.  It’s actually a no-brainer.

But here’s the problem.  Sleep is just so boring.  It’s so mind numbing and tedious.  And there’s so much else I would rather be doing. 

Now I’m not saying sleep isn’t nice.  Because I do like it.  I just find it a waste of time.  According to my mom, this has been my motto since birth.  Personally, I think it’s because I’m so scared I’ll miss out on anything fun.  And any product that give me a means to cheat Wee Willie Winkie, is a-okay in my books.

Still every so often, I indulge in an energy drink.  Because ineffective or not, they con my brain into thinking, I’ll have a bit more oomph.  Sort of the placebo effect, if you catch my drift.  Because though a part of my brain is thinking, “who are you kidding?”, another part of my brain is thinking, “yippiee, today I will have an energetic and super productive day!”.  I am also usually overcome with visions of the energizer bunny that just keeps on going. 

But I’ve given it some thought, surely the magic ingredient that would ensure energy, apart from boring sleep, is sugar?  If memory serves me from way back in time, when I was still at school, sugar equalled energy.

I present to you, the original Wee Willie Winkie:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,

Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,

Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,

"Are the children all in bed, for now it's eight o'clock?"

 

And then I give to you my souped up version (with wonderous second verse):

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,

Upstairs and downstairs with his party crown

Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,

“Yo-yo party peeps, it’s time to rock”

Have you had your sugar yet?

It will start your energy jet.

Put some zing in your step

Cause sleeping’s such an awful schlepp

 I would also just like to mention, that something has clearly gone missing in translation.  And I'm uber grateful for that.  In the original Wee Willie Winkie poem, of Scottish origin, the line was, “Are the children all in bed, for now it’s 10 o’clock”.  Thank heavens some clever person rewrote it, made a typo and changed the time to 8pm.  Can you imagine still having your children under your feet at 10pm at night?  If that was the case, I’d have to resort to bucket loads of sugar, to get me through each day.

But maybe not even that would help.

So perhaps I’ve missed a critical and far cheaper coup?  A triumph of sorts.  Rather than spend money on so-called energy drinks, I could just go right to the source – my sugar bowl at home.

Consider it done.  And so, sorry to Red Bull, Monster, Boost, Robust and Play – perhaps, rather than spend money on you, I’ll just sugar-up instead.  I’m sure my dentist would love to go on holiday again.  Maybe this way, I can even fund it for her…..

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