I'm b-b-b-b-buzzing like a honey b-b-b-bee right n-n-n-now. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold them steady over my keyboard. The fillings in my teeth feel like they each have about 220 volts of electric current running through them and I'm actually experiencing each individual hair on my head, every one of which is standing on end.

How did I wind up like this? Since I suddenly find myself able to type at a rate of about 8,000 words per minute, it shouldn't take long to explain.

On mornings when it isn't raining, too hot or too cold, I walk down to the corner convenience store near my house to purchase a cup of coffee before starting work for the day. A very large cup; 28 ounces, I believe. To the coffee, I add three or four creamers and several of those little packets of fake sugar. By the time I get back to my desk 15 minutes later, the coffee's gone.

I'm not a small guy, and 28 ounces of coffee has little discernible effect on me. By 11 a.m. or so, I'm usually able to sleep at my desk, despite this morning influx of caffeine. (I've trained myself to sleep with my eyes open, so it'll look like I'm working, just in case somebody stops by, but don't mention this to my editor. In fact, forget I said anything about it.)

I usually have a cup of tea (more caffeine) mid-morning, then a Coke or two (still more caffeine) later in the afternoon. As far as I can tell, the total effect of all that caffeine on my metabolism is exactly zilch, nada, zippo.

But today is different. Today I'm sparking like a downed power cable.

Today, when I strolled down for my morning coffee, I also picked up a pack of mints. Usually I'm not overly-concerned about my breath (If you don't like it, step back and get the hell out of my personal space, already!), but I made fettuccine Alfredo last night and went a little overboard with the garlic. Two teeth brushings and six ounces of Listerine later I could still taste it.

So I brought the mints. Cute packaging; they looked like little geodesic balls, smaller than a dime and mounted individually on a bubble card, the kind where you push on the plastic front and the mint pops out through a thin covering of aluminum foil on the back.

I ate a couple before starting on my coffee. The coffee, as usual, I finished during my walk home. I ate a couple more mints

Back home, I ate a couple more.

It was right around this time I began to notice a marked increase in my typing speed. Also, I was having a hard time hearing the ringer on my phone, as my teeth were chattering together like castanets played by a panicky hummingbird.

A high, buzzing sound, like a mosquito zipping from ear to ear - inside my head - started up and didn't stop.

Certainly, I thought, they weren't suddenly making the convenience store coffee that much stronger, were they? It hadn't tasted any stronger.

To give my jittering teeth something to do, I popped another mint into my mouth and crunched it. That's when I noticed the word "ENERGY" printed in bright red and yellow letters on the front of the package. Energy was certainly what I was feeling, all righty. Energy like a faulty nuclear reactor in its final moments before going China Syndrome.

On the back of the pack of mints, the ingredients were listed, and among them - in some of the tiniest type I've ever seen - was caffeine. Fifty milligrams of caffeine. Per mint! Of which I had now eaten seven, for a total caffeine intake of 350 milligrams, not counting the caffeine in the coffee I'd drunk on the walk home from the convenience store.

Figuring about 100 milligrams of caffeine for each 5 ounce serving of coffee, my 28 ounce morning "cuppa" contained about 560 milligrams of caffeine, which - when combined with the 350 milligrams of "mint" caffeine - comes out to a grand total of 910 milligrams, or roughly the yearly caffeine intake of the entire country of Peru, not counting that drunk by Juan Valdez or his donkey.

So now my heart's hammering away at about 600 beats per minute (the average is between 60 and 90) and my blood pressure's 12,000 over 1,900 (normal is 110 over 60).

On the plus side, I find I can now flap my arms fast enough to fly short distances and dodge bullets with ease. Maybe I should have myself fitted for a Spandex super-hero costume. I could get "The 910-Milligram Man" sewn into the cape.

Makers of decaf beware! The Caffeinated Crusader is on the c-c-c-c-case!

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or directions to nearby Starbuck's, e-mail mtaylor@midmich.net or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429.