Our oldest and I got back from visiting the in-laws today and spent the day recovering from the trip, the days sitting on the floor, and the time standing around watching our girls play computer games. All this has got me thinking about little vials of energy.

I suspect that part of the reason Japan was, and partly remains, a smoker’s heaven and a coffee drinker’s hell is the abundance of energy drinks (called “nutritional drinks”) available long before the West discovered Red Bull–an import from Thailand. In some ways energy drinks are better than coffee for workers in a hectic environment: There’s no mess; no one has to worry about being the one who empties the pot and has to waste precious time making a new one; there’s no chance of spilling on the way back to the desk; and there’s no chance some moron will slip decaffeinated evil in the mix. Energy drinks can be consumed quickly at the desk or during a smoke break.

My first experience with one of these came my second year in Japan. Mr. Oguma, the former punk-rock musician working as my Japanese English Teacher, either noticing I was tired or tired of me complaining I was tired, gave me a little bottle of energy drink. I don’t remember the name, but I remember it had coffee beans on the label. It had a nice, tart flavor and was gone in a few seconds. I wasn’t that impressed at first. Then my stomach felt warm; then that warmth spread to my entire torso and out into my limbs. Then I had one of those movie moments where I went “I’m not really feeling it” and then it hit and my teeth bared, my fingers made claws and I hissed. I was ready for work.

Almost every pharmaceutical company in Japan makes some form of energy drink and they range in price from a few dollars a bottle to over 20 dollars a bottle. I know one company that, as a right of passage, sends its new employees, regardless of their job, into shopping centers and into the streets to sell cases full of the drinks to passers-by. Because of the pharmaceutical connection, they were only sold in pharmacies. Several years ago, however, for reasons I don’t remember (best guess: money), Japan changed its law to allow energy drinks to be sold in convenience stores.

This created political problems for some of the pharmaceutical companies. One company has a pharmacy chain as one of their major stock holders. The pharmacy chain refuses to allow the drinks to be sold in convenience stores even though sales would probably double. (It would be like trying to buy aspirin if it could only be sold over-the-counter in pharmacies.)

I still generally avoid the energy drinks. The one’s I’ve tried were, with only a couple exceptions, free samples for human testing from clients. I’ve tried Red Bull a few times, but mostly when the Red Bull Mini and the Red Bull Girls are out in front of the station near where I work.

I prefer coffee.