There was a huge display for Bang energy drink at my local supermarket, so I grabbed a couple of them. They always looked intimidating to me because of the labels stating that people sensitive to caffeine should be careful. There’s also a warning on the back that says it’s meant to be consumed by “healthy” people. I’m not sure whether or not I’m “healthy.” I have good blood pressure and I work out regularly, but I don’t know if those are the kind of parameters they’re looking for. I smoke cigarettes too, and I eat processed food on occasion. I don’t fucking know what healthy is. I don’t even know if that’s an attainable thing, let alone a requirement for consuming a drink. But whatever! I grabbed Blue Razz and Sour Heads. My favorite flavor is sour/tart, so I was hoping these would be lip puckering sour with carbonation and, of course, caffeine.

I had a long day of doing nothing ahead of me, so I cracked a can at 3pm. Big mistake—HUGE!!! I was buzzing before a third of the can was done. I went with Sour Heads first. I wanted it to be like Warheads or Toxic Waste sour candies funneled into a disgusting, fucked up drink. It wasn’t. It was better. If it were the amount of sour I was craving, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the can. It had a watermelon flavor to it, with a hint of tart at the back of the throat. I felt like a character in a movie, after they drink some insane potion and their eyes pop wide open and they can see music and taste sounds. I nursed it for a few hours. By the time I finished it, I felt like I could run around the block 300 times with a car lifted above my head. It felt noticeably different from an intense, nail-biting caffeine high—because most energy drinks have SO much sugar it makes me crash insanely hard. Bang doesn’t have sugar in it, and it does have a bit of a fake sugar aftertaste, but it’s not enough to put me off from drinking it.

I smoked some weed to taper off the caffeinated feeling, as one does, and I felt like a well-oiled machine. That day I pickled eggs and red onions, did laundry, worked out (TWICE), went grocery shopping, went to Wal-Mart, went on a hike, re-organized the kitchen, planned out my entire next month in my bullet journal. I was afraid of myself for a minute. Is this what I’m capable of? Is this the real me? Or is this the perfect me? By 9pm, my normal time to wind-down from the day, I was still WIDE awake. I stayed up and wrote down every idea that popped into my head. While it was happening, I was sure this would result in me looking at what I’d scrawled down, after the caffeine wore off, and wondering what the fuck I was talking about.

I finally started getting tired around 2am. The sleepiness gradually set in while I was sitting on the edge of my bed watching Golden Girls. Do you understand how caffeinated you have to be to be gripping your seat watching Golden Girls like it’s an action movie? I still woke up at 6am the next day. I didn’t feel great, but I usually get 7 hours of sleep, so obviously I didn’t. But I looked back over everything I did the day before, including my bullet journal notes, and it was amazing. It all made sense. It wasn’t gibberish, and it wasn’t insane, there was really good stuff there. Since I had done all of my chores and activities the previous day, I went through the day without caffeine. It was weird. I felt lazy compared to the way I was the previous day. The previous day I was a scholar, a champion, a mother, a daughter, a genius. The day after, I was just some bitch with nothing to do. I milled around the house and thought up tasks for myself to do the following day, when I decided I would try the Blue Razz. The Blue Razz was also not as tart as I wanted it to be. It tasted good, but I really wanted some sour!!

The day went smoothly and I executed every plan flawlessly. I drank it earlier in the day that time, so by the end of the night I wasn’t still wide awake. I went to bed at 11pm, and even though I did have a moment where I was bored, had energy, and chased my cat around saying “Let me see your teeth!!!” (because I wanted to see his teeth for some reason?) I didn’t have any other moments of insanity. I just felt very alert, which is a feeling I’m not used to. Even when I have caffeine other times, I don’t feel THIS mentally sharp. Another thing I liked was being able to work out without feeling like my heart was beating out of my chest. Both days I had Bang, I worked out twice, and I felt normal doing it. Overall, I liked these drinks, and I’m only taking points off for flavor. I will absolutely drink them again, but I wouldn’t do it on an everyday basis because I’m scared of the person I could become (more neurotic than I already am now, with a superiority complex about being productive). 8/10