Dear PRIME,
Dream Pop, Cherry Limeade, Dripsicle, Original… every flavor hits like a choir of caffeinated angels. My wife even likes Dream Pop and she usually says energy drinks taste like “bad decisions in a can.” That’s how powerful you are, PRIME. You convert the unbelievers.
But every time I drink one, I think of MRS. CARTER. My tenth grade math teacher. The woman who looked me dead in the eyes and said, “James, you’ll never amount to anything if all you do is drink caffeine.”
Never amount to anything.
NEVER. AMOUNT. TO. ANYTHING.
Well, guess what, Mrs. Carter? I am amounting RIGHT NOW. I am overflowing. I am so amounted I could drown in myself. I am three Dream Pops deep, vibrating like a fax machine in an earthquake, and I feel GOD HIMSELF tap-dancing in my frontal lobe. I could peel the paint off the walls with my bare teeth. Is this “nothing”? No. This is EVERYTHING.
She thought I’d “crash.” CRASH? I am not crashing, I am ascending. I am levitating in my living room while my wife hides the rest of my cans because she fears what I will become. I am PRIME INCARNATE. I am a neon thunderclap. If I “crash,” it will be through the stratosphere, directly into Mrs. Carter’s front lawn. I will land on her azaleas, glowing like radioactive lightning, and I will whisper, “I amounted.”
If PRIME ever stops making Dream Pop, I swear I will lose whatever thin grasp on reality I still possess. I will build a forty-foot effigy of Mrs. Carter out of empty cans, light it on fire, and dance around it while chanting multiplication tables. The owls will gather. The raccoons will judge. And she will feel it from wherever she is.
Now, my dad says chugging energy drinks isn’t a sport. He says there will never be a Division 1 scholarship for cracking a can of Cherry Limeade and downing it in 2.3 seconds. Well, Dad, tell that to my pounding heart. Tell that to the sweat dripping off me like victory confetti. Tell that to the future PRIME Games of 2036, where I will stand on the podium, gold medal around my neck, burping Dripsicle into the national anthem.
So thank you, PRIME. Thank you for the flavors, the buzz, and the divine fury that proves Mrs. Carter was wrong.
Skunked,
James