If she only knew then what she knows now.

This is the story of how a Costco caramel cold brew took me out for three days.

I was at Costco on a Thursday afternoon, ordering a hot dog like a normal person. My first step when entering Costco is often getting something for my kids and me to eat. We live an hour and a half away, so by the time we get there, we need food in us or we will make a series of bad choices while shopping.

On a previous trip, I had noticed a new item at the food court, a caramel cold brew frappe, but decided I would come back for it another time. I have had the mocha in the past, and while it was sweet, more dessert than coffee, it was not horrible and nothing bad happened.

For some reason, I decided that today was the day. So I made the impulsive decision to add the caramel cold brew to my order and fundamentally disrupt the rest of my week.

When I picked it up from the food court attendant, I immediately noticed how much caramel there seemed to be in that cup, but I did not think too much of it yet. I took my kids off to the side to dress our hot dogs and get some lemonade cut with soda water from the fountain, and then we headed in to start shopping.

I was already a little tight on time. I needed to be back up north to pick up my son by 5:30 that evening, and it was about 2:30 now.

So, in the health and wellness aisle, right next to the minoxidil, I decided to take my first sip.

And it went like this:

My first sip felt like drinking straight caramel sauce. I needed a straw just to reach any of the coffee frappe underneath. I swirled it, hoping to mix the two components a little. This did not help much. The coffee itself was extremely sweet, and the caramel was, frankly, alarming. There were only two flavor notes happening here: sweet, and sickeningly syrupy sweet.

I placed the drink back in the cart, unsure I would have any more of that. We went on with our shopping trip as normal, almost forgetting I had even bought it.

When it came time to check out, the cashier said, “Don’t forget your drink.”
I briefly considered tossing it, but then I thought, that’s three dollars down the drain. What a waste. Maybe I will take it home for later.

Once I had loaded the kids and groceries into the car, I placed the “coffee” in the cup holder. As I began to drive away, I heard something light and plastic fall from the roof of the car.

In my rush to get out of the parking lot in time to pick up my eldest, I had left my brand new glasses on the roof while I loaded everyone in. I circled back and realized I had run them over.

Great, I thought. Things are unraveling fast.

At about 4:00 pm, I paged my husband. He works in a locked down facility without access to his phone. I realized I was already thirty minutes behind schedule and there was no way I was going to make it to pick up my son on time. I asked if he could leave work right away to get Lloyd. I told him I was having some trouble in Albuquerque.

Concerned, he asked what was wrong. I told him it was no big deal, I was just losing track of time. I did not mention the coffee. Or the glasses.

About thirty minutes into the drive, I looked down and remembered the frappe. I took another sip. Still sickeningly sweet. The melting had not helped. Without really thinking about it, I kept drinking until I reached the bottom, where an inch thick pool of caramel had formed.

The last sip I was willing to take was almost entirely syrup.

Not long after that, the baby started crying, so I pulled off I-25 to check on him.

This is when I first started to really feel the effects of what I had done.

After getting the baby settled, before pulling back onto I-25, I decided I needed to make another log entry on the coffee situation. I had no idea what was coming, but I knew I owed my story audience an update. It had been about three hours since my first sip at 2:30 pm.

Messages had been pouring in about the coffee, and the people needed confirmation that this was, in fact, a bad choice, if they had not already figured that out.

In that video, I said that 100 grams of sugar was a conservative estimate for that “coffee,” and that while this item could be done well, it desperately needed contrast. Make the cold brew part just cold brew and milk. No sweet. The amount of caramel already in the cup was more than enough to sweeten the entire thing.

I ended the video with, “I do not feel good, and I do not recommend that coffee.”

The rest of the drive home was relatively uneventful, aside from the creeping onset of that horrible, caffeine fueled, mildly sweaty feeling that comes with overdoing it. On a normal day, I drink one cup of French press coffee in the morning and maybe a black or green tea late morning or early afternoon. Back in my line cook days, I could drink coffee at any hour and be mostly fine. My father in law is obsessed with Celsius energy drinks and brings a case every time he visits. I have had one of those before. This should not be a problem, I told myself.

My husband arrived home with our son about fifteen minutes after we did. I started a pot of macaroni and cheese for them while I put away groceries. After they ate, we started getting the kids ready for bed. He read them books, and once they were asleep, he came into the kitchen and asked what I wanted to do.

“Well,” I said, “we got the Christmas cards in the mail today. We might as well start filling those out.”

This was Thursday, December 18th.

He has always wanted to get a card out on time, and after ten years together and almost eight years as parents, we have yet to accomplish this.

It was about 8:30 pm. I figured we could put a couple hours in and call it a night, then finish the next day.

As we sat there, the sheer amount of sugar I had essentially poisoned myself with, combined with the caffeine, really started to take effect. Every time I looked at the clock, another hour had passed, even though it felt like minutes. At one point I thought, wait, did I eat dinner? That was when I realized I had only eaten a hot dog at 2:30 pm and that coffee.

It was after ten o’clock. I was not about to add to the growing pile of dishes I had not gotten to.

By 11:30 pm, we were well past the time my husband and I should have been in bed. He had work the next morning, and my son had his last day of school before winter break. I took a quick picture to update the people on the coffee progress.

Although we had decided it was time for bed, sleep did not come for me. I lay there watching medical horror stories on YouTube, the kind where people eat old food or accidentally inhale brake cleaner and end up in the ER, unable to wind down.

By about 1:30 am, I decided I had to at least try. If I did not make myself go to sleep, I could stay up all night, and then the following day would really be ruined. At that point, I had about four hours before I needed to be up getting kids ready.

Rest did not come easily. That horrible greasy, sweaty feeling kept me awake. I rolled back and forth, dreading the sound of my incoming alarm. I kept drinking water, unbearably thirsty all night.

Like any other morning, around 6:00 am, my two year old opened the bedroom door to wake me up. But this was not like any other morning.

Immediately, I felt an old sensation creep in, one I had not felt in years. The distinct feeling of a hangover.

I could not tell you the last time I was actually hungover. My life at this point is pretty basic and systematic. Bedtime for the kids and me tends to come around the same time every night. Mornings follow the same routine, getting everyone ready and making it to the school bus on time. I do not drink more than a beer or a glass of wine at a time, if at all, maybe a few times a year. I like my physical state to be as sharp as possible. With a three month old, a two year old, and a seven year old, that is already challenging enough.

We did not make it to the bus on time.

That meant an extra fifteen minute drive to school, turning a twenty minute trip into thirty five. By the time we were rolling back into town, my two year old was demanding bubble gum from the gas station.

I figured, this day could not get any weirder. Let’s do it.

We pulled into the gas station and I noticed that, like many gas stations in New Mexico, it had a small kitchen offering burritos of all kinds, tacos, and other local classics. I realized I had not eaten anything before leaving the house and was now about sixteen hours in, fueled solely by a hot dog and a roughly 100 gram sugar coffee.

I needed something else in my body.

So I ordered a chile relleno burrito.

I am not actually a huge burrito person, but I do love chile relleno, bean and cheese, carne adovada, and a sausage green chile breakfast burrito. Maybe I am just not a Southern California burrito fan. I do not love a ton of rice, sour cream, and guacamole packed into one thing. New Mexico burritos tend to be all bang and no filler, and they usually set you right.

My order was up around 9:30. We headed back to the car with some bubble gum and the burrito. It came on a fresh tortilla, filled with a chile relleno and a generous amount of really good beans. I thought, this is going to fix me. Surely this will somehow reverse the less than four hours of sleep and the toxic amount of sugar I had ingested.

At first, I was bummed she did not include any salsa on the side. Sometimes I think people assume I do not want salsa based on looks, which is probably a decision formed by pattern. I am sure many güeros do not eat the salsa and it goes to waste. I, however, want to be burned from the inside out.

But the babies were already buckled in, and I was not about to take them back out just to walk inside for a cup of salsa. I realize now that this probably saved me at least a little discomfort.

And while it was delicious, and I did feel better, I was still spun.

Once I got home, I felt compelled to write. That dull, familiar but at this point very foreign ache of a hangover was humming through my body, and the caffeine was buzzing enough that simply resting was not an option.

At about 11:30 am, my two year old announced she was hungry and wanted macaroni. More macaroni, I thought. Surely a second meal centered around boxed noodles and bubble gum within a twenty four hour period could not be a bad thing.

And because she will only eat maybe a quarter of a box once it is cooked, when she wants macaroni for lunch, I also end up having macaroni for some portion of my lunch.

My body was craving fluids. So many fluids. Salt, fats, protein, fermented things, and savory carbs. Anything but sugar and caffeine. While I was making lunch, I noticed the coffee I had made myself that morning, only a sip or two missing, sitting cold on the counter.

I sat down with a can of sardines, a drizzle of homegrown fermented cayenne sauce, some kimchi, a kombucha, and a bowl of Annie’s mac, the kind that is meant to closely resemble Kraft macaroni and cheese.

I had a lot to say about my Costco trip, but any writing was heavily interrupted by my own inability to sit still, combined with bouncing between caring for my two year old and her three month old brother.

I felt better. I think. But the buzz lingered.

Before I knew it, it was time to go get my son from the bus stop. I did not want to keep Ms. Ck waiting.

Once we got back home around 4:00 pm, I sent the older kids outside to play before it got dark and got started on dinner. After going nearly eighteen hours without real food, my body was still desperate to come back from that, even after having two meals since.

I did not feel like cooking, but I also was not about to be seen in public or spend any more money after such a big Costco trip the day before. The easiest and most nourishing thing I could come up with was some sort of shrimp boil soup.

A pot of chicken broth, a spoonful of bouillon, and a few pounds of small potatoes went on to boil. Once the potatoes were just cooked, I added about a pound of the red Argentine shrimp, a can of corn, a generous amount of freshly chopped garlic, and around four ounces of butter. I kept the seasoning simple so the kids would eat it, then finished my husband’s bowls with some Old Bay, a sprinkle of home dried parsley, a little dried cayenne powder, and Valentina hot sauce at the table.

All in all, dinner took about twenty minutes, with basically no prep beyond chopping the garlic.

This felt good. Grounding. Restorative.

And once the kids were asleep, I was finally ready for bed.

What I didn’t know

was that, yet again, sleep would not come easily. It was much better than the night before, but still disrupted. That greasy, overtired feeling where you are so exhausted you cannot function, yet somehow cannot sleep either. You know that one?

It gave me some very uncomfortable flashbacks to my party days, long since forgotten, until that horrid coffee came along.

The next morning, now Saturday, almost forty eight hours after the caramel cold brew, the cold my kids had barely been bothered by, the one I had been keeping at bay all week, suddenly erupted overnight.

Excellent. A cold for Christmas. Just what everyone wants in their stocking.

I did my best to take it easy, but as anyone with small children knows, there is no such thing. No amount of movies and snacks will keep them out of your hair long enough for a nap. Even though my husband was home for the weekend, this did not seem to help. I swear they can sense when you are down and the needs somehow increase.

Now I am really starting to understand just how much a simple decision not to waste a three dollar drink has cost me. The sugar, combined with the caffeine and lack of sleep, lowered my defenses enough that I got legitimately sick.

Even as I write this now, five days later, I am still struggling to shake this cold and what feels like residual effects. And all I really need you to know is this:

Do not try the Costco caramel cold brew frappe.

At least not on your own. It could easily be shared between four people and still be too much.

I Wrecked My Ship on a Costco Caramel Cold Brew So You Don’t Have To

What I didn’t know

What I Buy at Costco as a Mother, a Chef, and a Homesteader