Red Thunder: Refreshing Beverage or Sign of the Apocalypse?

My apartment is 3 short blocks* from an Aldi's grocery store. For you international readers, Aldi's is a grocery store which sells mostly generic brand food for batshit-insane prices. Though, for some reason, they charge you for both the use of a shopping carts and for bags to put your food in. This means I visit once or twice a week and carry a handful of food home. Usual purchases include hamburger and hotdog buns, eggs, tortilla chips, and cereal.

A couple months ago I discovered 'Red Thunder,' which is the Aldi's equivalent of Red Bull energy drink. Selling a pack of four for just $1.99, I couldn't help but try it. I don't at present remember any specific times drinking that first four-pack, but I can tell you that it did the trick for the lowest possible price. I'm not an energy-drink fiend, but I do enjoy it from time to time, mixed with some sort of alcohol. However, on my last few trips, I've noticed it was out of stock, probably due to the terrific bargain it provided. Well, on Sunday I stopped by to pick up some salsa and bread, and found that there was one last four-pack on the shelves. They had, however, raised the price to $2.99, which luckily is still a good deal. I placed the four-pack in the fridge, where it patiently waited for its moment to strike.

Well, Tuesday I got home from work at about six and wasn't very hungry, and neither was M. We agreed to make spaghetti and meatballs later on, but for now we wouldn't worry about food. I said to myself, 'Well, I'm only slightly hungry, but I think maybe I deserve a drink to tide me over.' Unfortunately, we were out of beer, and the only alcohol in the house was vodka and vermouth. I didn't feel like a martini, so was prepared to walk out of the kitchen unsatisfied. But then I remembered the Red Thunder, and gleefully poured myself a 35/65 ratio of vodka to the tiny innocent little can. The rest of the evening passed, I enjoyed watching some bad reality TV, making dinner and hanging out with M and Kim Gordon the Cat. I went to bed around 11:30 p.m. A half-hour later I realized I was surprisingly too wired to sleep. I got up and watched some TV and enough of Elizabethtown to realize it was horrible, ate some snacks, drank some water, and lied down again at about 1:30 am. The next four hours were filled with tossing and turning and not being about to keep one coherent thought in my head for more than three seconds. Eventually the cat woke up and amused herself by biting me for an hour, then M got up for work. More tossing and turning, and a few minutes here and there of slightly dozing off and it was time to go to work. I hadn't felt so tired since the days of all-night-writing-that-very-important-paper-in-college-and-then-handing-it-in-before-I-passed-out. Work was largely a bust, I left an hour early and fell asleep when I arrived home for a two-hour nap. I woke up to sit dazed on the couch for a bit, then returned to bed at a normal time to toss and turn for most of another night. Damn You, Red Thunder!

Good news is that I don't have to get up early tomorrow, as I took vacation days both Friday and Monday, for no important reason. In fact, I just drank another Red Thunder & Vodka. I'll let you know at 4 a.m. how that goes.

*When I say 3 short blocks, I don't mean that 3 blocks by definition is a short distance, but that each of the 3 blocks separating me from Aldi's are actually unusually short blocks, so that it seems more like 1.75 blocks away. I apologize once again for the confusing syntax.