Find For You

I Don't Pay $19 Per Pound For Anything

Your Google searches can reveal interesting aspects of your personality. Lately, Miles was doing queries for "fix my life" and "make me better at everything." Most of it was the typical self-help claptrap about believing in yourself or organizing your wishes. In other words, "garbaage." But there was one entry for the recipe of a drink that promised twice the energy of a cup of coffee with none of the jitters. It had 5,551 reviews and the average rating was 4.5 stars.

The seller had this to say, "Look man, I can give you the recipe, but a couple of things you have to know. It's not going to make sense to you so you'll have to trust the directions anyway. Don't try to research the ingredients. Don't make any substitutions. This is chemistry. You don't improvise chemistry."

He didn't exactly sound credible. If he could really increase a person's energy in a reliable way, why wasn't he the CEO of some big corporation? Why was he peddling his wares in a back alley of the Web?

The recipe was clear enough. It said to combine one cup of whole milk, one-half cup of diced reshkon root, and one-quarter cup of kik-kik berries into a blender. Miles had never heard of reshkon root or kik-kik berries, but he didn't know his way around a produce section either. He had to try a few stores, but the Global Fresh Mart had it all. They seemed to have all sorts of fruits and vegetables he had never heard of. Maybe they came from the rainforest. Reshkon root was $19 per pound and the berries were $14 per pint. This was ridiculous. This had to be some kind of scam. But how? What if it was poisonous? What if the plan was to make him sick and then charge him a fortune for the cure? On the other hand, what if it was possible to get a stronger buzz than coffee without any of the jitters and only using natural ingredients?

Miles had a grandma who had advised him, "You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet." He supposed the same logic applied to smoothies.

For some reason, he was expecting an awful taste. Most energy drinks tasted awful to him and even coffee was something he drank with lots of milk and sugar. But this wasn't bad at all. He sipped it slowly, trying to isolate the flavors. It was like a strawberry smoothie with just a hint of pineapple.

On the first day, Miles expected the reshkon juice to make a huge impact on his life. He was disappointed. Not much had changed. He still felt like staying home from work. Then when the work day ended, he felt exhausted. But one little thing had changed. Every time Miles needed to recall the word for something, it came to him right away, like it had a jetpack on its back.