The Vitamin King of Freshman Year

The cafeteria social pyramid was crystal clear: seniors at the top, then juniors, sophomores, and us freshman way at the bottom—barely above the teachers, honestly. I was nursing my chocolate milk when Marcus slid into the seat across from me.

"Yo, you trying to get absolutely yoked or what?" Marcus asked, sliding a suspicious-looking orange bottle across the table. The label claimed these vitamins could "unlock your true potential" which, looking back, should've been my first red flag.

"My cousin sells these," he continued, eyes wide with the kind of enthusiasm only freshman still possess. "It's not a pyramid scheme, it's like—a pyramid of success. You get in at the ground floor, you recruit people under you, everyone wins. It's basically free money."

I was desperate enough to believe him.

Two weeks later, I'd blown three months of allowance on vitamins I didn't need and was trying to convince my lab partner that "true wellness starts from within" while she stared at me like I'd grown a second head. My younger sister's golden retriever, Buster, was literally the only living creature who didn't judge me for falling for it—but that's mostly because Buster ate garbage and thought it was gourmet.

The breaking point came when my mom found my "business plan" notebook, which was essentially just me trying to calculate how many people I'd need to recruit to break even. She didn't even yell—just looked at me with that tired mom energy and said, "Honey, the only thing you're unlocking is a lesson about why things that look too good to be true usually are."

Marcus moved on to crypto mining the next month. I returned to my natural habitat: the middle of the cafeteria pyramid, happily average, decidedly not yoked. Buster still loved me, though mostly because I dropped food.

Some lessons you have to learn the hard way. At least I wasn't taking those weird gummy bear ones anymore.