You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.

Hey there, Andy Tegel here.

Do you know when your relationship with caffeine began?

I know exactly when mine started.

Years before I became a reporter for LifeKit, I worked at Greyfield Shift.

I was a sophomore in college at the time, and it was my duty from 9pm to 6am to sit at a desk

at the front of the dorms and checked the IDs of everyone who entered the building.

Not a whole lot to it?

Great gig to get your homework done.

The hardest part of the job was staying awake.

But lucky for me, my cute little home on a desk sat right next to a vending machine

stocked with all the best goodies.

Pop tarts, M&M's, cup and noodles, and maybe you've guessed it?

Energy drinks.

That was my beginning.

From that summer on, before every test, every deadline, every big interview,

really on any just marginally busy day for years, I needed my monster zero ultra.

That's the white and silver can for fellow enthusiasts.

It was so much a part of my routine, it kind of became a personality trait.

Maybe my drink doesn't speak too specifically, but I'm betting that you can relate.

There are millions of adult brains out there at the wake of every morning and scream,

caffeine, caffeine, caffeine.

...