That strawberry banana (“the pink Sobe”) saved my life one night when I was about 24.

I got a new apartment on the other side of the city. I just got a new job, but barely had enough for the first/last month’s rent and deposit to clear, and a U-Haul to move my stuff. So all I had to eat was one pack of ramen and the rest of a bag of frozen peas and carrots… for the entire day.

I also had to move my stuff. My girlfriend (current wife) helped me after she got off work, but for the most part I had to lift all the furniture and boxes down a flight of stairs into the moving truck on my own. It was a Tuesday and I didn’t want to bother any of my buddies - and admittedly I’m a little too stubborn to ask for help. Needless to say, I was exhausted. And apparently my blood sugar was falling.

After the truck was packed and closed up, I dropped off my old key and we hit the road. Just in time for traffic, just in time for dark, and just in time for the rain.

45 minutes of stop & go traffic, in November in Portland. From near Beaverton to SE 135th & Division. Dark, wet, white knuckle grip, truck packed to the gills.

Numbness began radiating from my forearms. Soon my hands and feet throbbed with a numb lifelessness that I could not control. My stomach, too. As I try to maintain control of the U-Haul, my dead hands began to flex, unwillingly bending toward my own wrists. I had no feeling or control of either hand. In my mind I knew I was in mortal danger.

The numbness still growing up my arms into my shoulders, I used my wrists and elbows to steer the truck. We made it off the 205 just in time, into a gas station. Wife jumped out, ran in, and came back out with the pink Sobe and a Pop-tart. I couldn’t open the bottle myself so she opened it for me and helped lift to my mouth. I chugged like I was dying of thirst, but what I was really in danger of, evidently, is hypoglycemia.

The sugar instantly affected my body, and feeling returned to my extremities. I finished it and the Pop-tart, met my friends at my new place, and got it all moved in (first floor, thank god) in like an hour.

Don’t forget to eat, people!