Red Bull Blast

Wow. I just had my first Red Bull in over 10 months. The last time I treated myself to the lightly carbonated deliciousness of the world’s best energy drink, I was speaking on the fifth of five consecutive days at the National Debate championships and was living off taurine, caffeine and adrenaline. Then, I didn’t just drink the stuff; I guzzled it as if it was going out of style. I averaged 3.25 cans a day (over the course of the tournament) as I slurped raw energy with raw abandon.

Last summer’s blast of Red Bull had given me some problems. It took a week before my hands stopped shaking and I had cardiac irregularities for a few months afterwards. My vision reacted strangely to light and I absolutely had to have some caffeine to wake up in the morning. I decided that, though tasty and metabolism strengthening, Red Bull was 8.3 fluid ounces of early death and I’d rather abstain. There is a reason, after all, that this beverage is banned in Denmark, Norway, France, Uruguay, France and Iceland and wouldn’t be sold to minors in Finland.

My resolve lasted until about an hour ago.

Earlier today, while eating lunch with Amanda and Tony, a couple of Red Bull sales people approached our table and, after discovering that Tony and I were athletes for the school, insisted we take a canister of their product as a sample. They practically forced me to succumb to their requests with such persuasive entreaties as:

“Red Bull is the most heterosexual drink ever produced in Austria.”

“This stuff is stronger than Peyote.”

“It’ll do wonders for your times.”

I packed my can away, knowing I had a mid-term in my night class that evening and did not want to risk any adverse side-effects that might impair my performance.

But something about the cold tin of an unopened Red Bull can was too enticing for even my academically focused psyche. After track practice, I opened up the can, enjoyed the oddly comforting depressurization noise, and took a large gulp of liquid myocardial infarction.

I smiled, exhaling slowly and feeling a quiet hum in the back of my head. The stuff was working. I could feel my heart rate increase and knew my blood pressure had to be in the danger zone. I had hypertension, but it was a good kind of hypertension. A dull throb pounded throughout my body and my hand started to shake.

I took a second gulp.

Memories of last summer washed over me. I paused to enjoy them; some memories are best remembered the way they were experienced.

Before I knew it, I had drained the entire can. I couldn’t remember the last time I drank any beverage that quickly, much less a highly mephitic blend of semi-toxic stimulants.

I drove home more alert than I’d been in years. I took a phone call from my brother and told him more in three minutes than I had in three weeks. I think he suspected something.  I wrote this post in record time and did so while editing a term paper and writing an email.

My mid-term felt good, but I ended up getting my worst grade yet this semester. That’ll be the one I drop.

Have you ever heard of Funny Class Notes?

After my late morning foreign language class last week, I settled down for lunch at the campus canteen with a couple of my fellow students. One, Tony, an avid soccer player and regular running partner, was a frequent lunchtime mate. The other, Amanda, the girl who sits behind me and to my right in class and can say twenty words in at least twenty languages, came along for the (English) conversation.

And converse we did. Over tasty pepperoni pizza, a turkey sandwich with all the fixings and a cream cheese filled pretzel (my favorite canteen fare), we battled wits the way only college students can. That is, we used mutters, grunts and urban dictionary slang to express our most aesthetic of emotions.

I am not sure what superfluous topic of conversation we were dealing with when Amanda looked up, a smile in her eyes, and said: “That’s funny. I read something like that a while back; have you ever heard of Funny Class Notes?”

Before going further, it is important for the reader to understand that while I am a highly egotistical person, I don’t go about introducing random classmates to FCN. It would just be too embarrassing to have all my fellow students reading the slanderous things I write about them. They would recognize the nuggets of truth that permeate these episodes and would no doubt take offense at the way their comments and actions are turned into comedy.

I had certainly never told Amanda about FCN.

Even more amazing was that Amanda was able to recognize not only the fact that she was familiar with whatever it was that jogged her FCN memory, but that the content was originally from it. She didn’t think “oh, I read that online somewhere” or "I think some idiot said that on the radio," but instead thought “that’s from FCN.”

Not only had she connected the synapses and deduced the link between her auditory sensory data and FCN, but she felt the need to spread the good FCN word. She had asked me if I had ever heard of it; an obvious attempt to make me into a regular reader. Amanda wasn’t just one of the faithful FCN few, she was a missionary!

Also understand that I pretty much write the way I speak. The kinds of odd, socially unacceptable phrases that you all put up with so routinely tend to bubble out of me in conversation like foam out of beer. FCN posts are a rare glimpse into the chaos of the male mind and I have a penchant for expressing my inner madness with perverse regularity. If I am in my comfort zone, everyone else is in the splash zone. It’s true. Just ask my therapist.

These thoughts, and a few others, crossed my cream cheese inebriated mind in a matter of nanoseconds and I was ready with an answer, albeit an unimaginative one.

“Actually, yes. As a matter of fact, I am one of the writers for FCN. How in blue blazes did you hear about it?”

“My goodness, no!” Amanda looked excited. “I don’t know, a friend of mine told me about it a few months ago. Wow.”

That pretty much proves it. I didn’t know Amanda a few months ago.

At that moment, another realization struck me. I had just encountered our third reader. Our web software was vague as to her identity and up to this point we had been assuming she was an agent of the Russian government who kept tabs on FCN for security reasons. This isn't to say it's impossible for Amanda to be a Russian agent, but it certainly casts a shadow of doubt on our tracking software, which was designed by dear old Uncle Wally.

With all the food gone, our conversation ended quickly thereafter and Tony, Amanda and I headed our separate ways. But the knowledge that an FCN reader, even an FCN missionary, could be just around the next corner will haunt me for a long time.

“She has a ‘crush’ on you”

I am still shaking. Inside, my guts are trying desperately to find their proper position and realign themselves to the appropriate pipes. The class I am supposed to be attentive to is nothing but a blur and the teacher’s gesticulations are foreign to my traumatized psyche.

I think this is my philosophy class, but I might not be in the right room because my normal teacher is a bearded male. The professor in front of me now is an obese female. I think nothing of the error.

Ten minutes ago, I was calmly eating my paper sack lunch in the campus Canteen. Each bite of the savory turkey sandwich was slowly erasing the memories of a difficult science lab and my hunger was being pushed away by the spicy mustard sauce my mother prepared for me before I left.

My slice of heaven was interrupted by an attractive blonde girl’s approaching my empty table. I had my mouth full.

“Do you mind if I take your picture,” she asked with a smile.

“My pficture?” I was confused and the whole grain between my front teeth and lips didn’t help my diction. I was flattered nonetheless.

Taking my response as a “yes,” the newly arrived female pulled a pink razor cellular phone from her purse and pointed the camera lens in my direction. I tried to smile without revealing my crumb covered teeth.

The young woman turned around and would have walked away, had I not forced the remainder of my mouthful down the gullet (incidentally causing a painful dough lump) and asked politely why the picture was needed, besides, of course, the obvious advantage of having a super handsome guy as your desktop pic.

“Oh, my friend has a crush on you and she wants your picture.”

The dough lump got bigger. I tried to swallow but my mouth was so dry that my effort only made a gulping sound and probably caused me to look like a fish out of water. I felt a bead of sweat welling on my forehead, just below my hairline and willed myself keep looking worthy of a crush.

Crush. I’d heard the word before, thrown around, joked about and even used by friends. But what exactly did it mean? In agriculture, crush season is when all the wine grapes are harvested, but my intuition told me her comment had nothing to do with that. In society, crush means a juvenile infatuation with a member of the opposite gender that could, if both parties were more mature, lead to a short marriage. Maybe her friend was digging for a short marriage.

But why come over to my table? Was she suffering from a sever case of post Valentine’s Day depression and trying to assuage her feelings of abandonment with male companionship? Was she hungry for some chocolate and think I was hiding some leftover kisses in my pants pockets?

Ah, the questions that haunt the mind of the modern college student!

Coming from a family of guys, some of whom imagine themselves pretty hot stuff, I’d heard quite a bit of advice on how to handle female advances. I knew how to handle this one.

Stepping out of my chair, I extended my hand and introduced myself.

“I’m Lindsey.” She smiled as a response and looked expectant.

“So is your friend here? I’d love to meet her.” Note the adjective use. He-he!

“No, she’s not here today; she just wanted your picture.” With that last comment, Lindsay turned and walked back to her table.

That’s when I started shaking. In the course of a minute, as much time than it takes a collegiate sprinter to run 400 meters, I’d been informed of a girl’s interest (a boon to my now vibrant male ego) and been told that she just wanted my picture (can you hear the air coming out?).

If she simply desired my mug, she could have just visited any of the tens of singles sites I frequent. My picture (and several descriptive paragraphs) are pasted all over the web. I even have a profile on E-Harmony, where Lindsey’s friend and I could find compatibility on all twenty-nine levels.

No longer hungry, I packed up the remainder of my sandwich and walked to my class (or Miss Calorie's Calculus class as the case turned out).

Can there be any more nerve wracking realization than to be told that a girl has a crush on you? I don’t even know who this person is. She could be Katie Holmes in all her scientological glory or even the teacher with the cocaine wrinkles currently lecturing a sleepy audience in a monotone. She could even be the lovely Lindsey who came by to take the photo, but is playing a juvenile trick to obtain a pixilated representation of the man with whose image she has fallen in love.

Or the holder of the crush could be Anna Nicole Smith. Now there’s a scary thought.

That’s what makes this situation so redoubtable. Somewhere out there, in a world of 3 billion girls, there is one eligible candidate who actually likes me. The thought is so overwhelming, so groundbreaking, that it’s got part of me frightened. I don’t want to meet this mystery girl anymore. I want to go on imagining her as a Nancy Pelosi clone and never have to worry about living up to the image she’s made in her mind.

But then again, part of me is curious. Really curious, actually. Kinda tense, a little nervous and full of anticipation.