The down side to working in a waist-high-cubicle village is that you overhear everyone's conversations. The up side, of course, is that you overhear everyone's conversations.

Now is when I should probably offer an apology to my not-on-vacation colleagues who were compelled to overhear an...um...non-work-related conversation about...

[At this time I'd like to warn you that the following entry may not be appropriate first thing in the morning, or at any time of day for those averse to the word 'urine']

...urine. More specifically, the animal urine derivative "taurine." A colleague kindly (or not so kindly) filled me in on the fact that taurine (remember, it comes from urine) is found in most energy drinks like Monster, SoBe, vitaminwater, etc.

I guess he figured he'd share the info seeing as I had a nearly empty can of Celsius in my hand. I (perhaps naively) didn't think Celsius was an energy drink (I'd had a bad Monster experience not too long ago and try to steer clear of the stuff. But I'll keep my coffee).

So I turned the Celsius can in my hand to glance and the ingredients. Sure enough, there it was: taurine.

The saliva in my mouth suddenly felt very thick. I had the urge to spit into the garbage can, though I didn't. I got a drink of water.

The conversation then degenerated further into a discussion of the specific ingredients of the hormone-replacement therapy drug Premarin, but I won't get into that.

UPDATE: Well, it could be worse:

Norridgewock manure spill a stinky mess