The other weekend, I had to officiate a youth wrestling event. The action got started around noon, and I walked up to the high school kids working the table for my mat and asked them a very simple question.

“Are we ready to have some fun?”

They laughed or grunted as sleepy teenagers do (I used to communicate solely that way), letting me know that my enthusiasm would not be reciprocated. One told me he was almost out of his energy drink. Another said he had finished his. The third said nothing as he guarded a monster-size can of another brand.

I wondered how three cups of coffee that morning could get me so wound up while they had almost the same amount of these new-fangled drinks and just wanted to go back to sleep.

For some reason, I can’t even bring myself to try the energy drinks you find everywhere these days. Part of it is because I can’t manage to pull off a good night’s sleep if I have coffee or soda after 3 p.m. I wouldn’t want to know what would happen if I had one of those things for an afternoon pick-me-up.

The other part of the reason is that I have tried other means of keeping myself awake beyond regular coffee and soda, and the results were not pretty.

In high school, I took a group trip to England. I knew we had a long plane ride ahead of us, and I didn’t want to miss a moment. Not content with soda, I bought some caffeine pills. Big mistake.

I don’t remember the details, but I do remember annoying people on the plane and shaking my head when I saw photos from the flight later. I guess I was just extra happy, which is not always a good thing for the other passengers at 30,000 feet.

So I swore off the caffeine pills, but jumped at the chance to sample some Jolt cola in college. This was the extra-caffeinated soda which came out in 1985 and promised an extra boost, which I happened to need in order to write a paper one night.

I had two cans and the best way to describe how I felt was vibrating. I had absolutely no problem staying awake. Concentrating enough to write a paper for an English literature class was another matter entirely.

I still get that way when I have a little too much coffee. The coffee we drink most of the time has half the caffeine so I can get a little extra wired if I don’t pay attention to how much “full test” java I get when I go for the good stuff.

So part of me is intrigued about what would happen if I had one of these energy drinks while the rest of me knows that I would probably regret the whole thing before the buzz wore off. I can’t even imagine what would happen if I drank one of them late in the day.

I think I’ll stick with coffee. Just not too much.