This morning, after a class trip to the Ritz Carlton at Battery Park, I started to feel unusually exhausted and shaky. Low blood sugar, perhaps?

Rather than head to campus to get work done between classes, I high-tailed it home to eat some lunch, but not before grabbing a bottle of recently-elusive kombucha. Sure enough, partway through the subway ride, I started to feel like myself again, but by the time I reached my apartment (and the bottom of the bottle), I felt strangely warm and fuzzy—almost like I’d had a beer (a significant amount of alcohol for 4’11 me).

I fumbled my way through making lunch–a delicious melange of stuff I pre-made yesterday: brown rice, lentils, roasted eggplant and mushrooms, and homemade tomato sauce with a little goat cheese and chili powder mixed in after heating. The whole time I was shaking my head at myself. Seriously, Jess? Accidentally drunk at 12:30 pm on a Monday off of kombucha? The only thing left to do was finish up the issue of Self I’ve been chipping away at and take a nap.

Fortunately, I woke up an hour later clear-headed and confident I’d really just been tired after all. I’d never had that reaction before hearing about Whole Foods’ move to pull kombucha off its shelves due to discrepancies about the “trace” amount of alcohol, so I think I’m going to say this afternoon’s little adventure was mental, not physical. Good thing—I have another class today!