Kickin' buttz

What: Kickbutt Amped Energy Ballz (Cherry)
Where: Elmvale, ON
Cost: ~$3 (purchased by Eric)

My friend Katie invited me to her parents' house for Family day last Monday. I am blessed to have lovely friends, so it should come as no surprise that their families are just as fun to hang out with.

After a leisurely morning we walked through the town to check out the restaurant that had just burned down. I looked at antique tea cups then we gave some cream to the feral cat colony.

I love small towns.

On the way back we stopped at the local gas station and Eric bought these ballz for me. I ate them as we drove south through Barrie back to Toronto

They looked like two large, cherry gumballs, and for a fleeting second I wondered if perhaps they actually were. Maybe they would give off protein and vitamins while being chewed. Like Nicorette for body builders.

Without thinking I popped the first ball into my mouth.

It was a bad idea. The ball was like a candy-coated power bar. It didn't even taste like cherries, it was just gross. I think that the small size meant that there was not enough filling to mask the taste of the caffeine and other additives. It took me forever to finish it and the lingering taste of chemicals in my mouth made me decide not to eat the second one.

Soon I realized that I didn't know what the inside of the ball looked like, so I took another bite. It was chalky and brown, and seeing it made it even harder to swallow the second time around.

For something that claims to be a "Certified Natural Heath Product" those ballz sure were disgusting.

I had to rustle around inside the huge bags of food Katie's mom sent us home with to find something to clear the taste from my mouth. Fortunately Pat is a wonderful cook (and host) so it was not hard to find something delicious to cleanse my injured palate.

1.7/10

(10/10 for the muffin)

HR

A Mad and Old Faithful Telling

What: Super Start - A Complete "Hi-Potency" Vitamin and Mineral Packet
When: May 4, 2008
Where: En route to Boise, ID
Cost: Unknown (Purchased by Dave, the bastard.)

Oh, trucker pills. I giggle at them at cash registers because they are ridiculously huge and seem like a very bad idea. Does anyone need to force down 12 pills that contain (by my best estimate) 6000% of the recommended daily intake of every conceivable vitamin, mineral and any other supplement you can think of? Who are the people that buy these things?

Well, I guess Dave is one of those people.

As soon as I realised that he had bought them for me I tried to return the package, but the gas station clerk just laughed at me. So I was stuck with them.

This was at least a week ago. A lot of multivitamins give me a stomach ache and there is something unsettling about swallowing so many different pills, but I was sick of being nagged at about them so I decided to just do it during the long drive to Idaho.

One by one I swallowed the pills as Dave and Allison cheered me on. The pills were as follows:

Beta Carotene 25,000
B-Complex 100 (Sustained Release)
(2) C-Complex 2000 (Sustained Release)
Super Energy Plus
Vitamin E Complex 1000
Vitamin B-12 1000/Octacosanol 1000
Amino Acids 1000
Bee Pollen 1000
(2) Mineral Complex 1000
+ A free herbal energy booster called Ultra Herbal Start

I washed them down with Diet Coke and then immediately fell asleep.

My burps tasted like vitamins for the rest of the day and my urine looked like neon yellow Gatorade from the B-vitamins, but other than that I didn't really feel any different. The Herbal Energy Booster may have made me a little more energetic, but I was also coasting on the adrenalin that surged through my body as soon as I started swallowing a dozen weird looking pills.

I still have my fingers crossed that I will develop muscles like the ones pictured on the package, but that hope is quickly fading.

1.1/10

HR

[Update: Basia has requested that I make it clear that she did not approve of this pharmacological experiment, further ingratiating herself with my mother.]