As a news reporter here at The Selma-Times Journal, I often rely on caffeine to keep me alert and focused as I stare at my computer screen and write stories to fill each day’s edition of the newspaper.

I typically take my coffee black. For me, coffee is not a beverage to be sipped and savored, but medicine. Brewed to inspire productivity and focus. Therefore, I take my medicine with no added embellishments such as sugar or cream.

In the event the coffee I so desperately need is unavailable, I’ll journey to a nearby convenience store and grab a Starbucks Double Shot.

According to the can this beverage comes in, it contains vitamins, minerals, ginseng and guarana.

I’m not sure what guarana is (it sounds to me like a hazardous mold), but I know this drink also contains caffeine, which is all I really need.

On my way to cover an event held at Wallace Community College – Selma yesterday, I stepped

into the Dollar General on Broad Street across from Church’s Chicken to purchase a pick-me-up.

Unfortunately, my preferred flavor (mocha) of the aforementioned Double Shot beverage was not available.

I find the other flavors to be entirely too saccharine and metallic, so I opted to forgo the beverage

altogether until something I’d never seen before caught my eye.

Starbucks Triple Shot.
There in sinister red lettering against the silvery backdrop of the can was the statement promising 225mg of caffeine.

I’m not sure if 225mg is an acceptable amount of caffeine to put into your body at once, but, at the time, I felt it was just what I needed.

I sucked down the beverage with gusto, longing for its effect to make me feel at least half-way awake.

Within 30 minutes, I could feel the 225mg of caffeine working its dark magic amongst my nervous system.

I was alert. Focused. Colors seemed brighter, words seemed clearer and the very world before me seemed to move in slow motion.

This heightened sense of productivity and awareness carried me back to the newsroom where I was able to churn out a couple of stories for the paper before I began to feel differently.

Suddenly, I felt much worse than I did before I drank the promised drink.

I felt bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Huckstered.

Rather than a magic elixir that was meant to put a pep in my step I’d been sold snake oil that had stripped my body of energy and vigor within a mere two hours.

I do not blame the good people at Dollar General. It was not they who peddled the product, preying upon my pathetic consumer instincts.

It was my own fault for thinking something in a shiny can held the answer to my problems.

As the day went on I fared no better, but managed to make it through the day.

By the time, I arrived at Sturdivant Hall’s BBQ on the Green I felt less than human.

So, I would like to apologize on behalf on the disheveled gentleman with the camera around his neck with the world-weary eyes who looked as though he’d just crawled back from death’s very door.

I hope I did not ruin your lovely evening on the beautiful grounds of one of Selma’s most prestigious properties.

Also, I’d like to thank Mary Margaret Mims, Patti Currey and everyone who was hospitable enough to allow me to take their picture for Selma the Magazine’s Out and About section.

The food you good people allowed me to take back to the newsroom as I finished the day’s work made me feel almost human again.