The Vitamin King of Sophomore Year

Jordan's grand plan started in the cafeteria during third period, right between the soggy tater tots and the social hierarchy that looked less like a ladder and more like a **pyramid** scheme nobody had actually signed up for. At the bottom: freshmen with their too-big backpacks and existential dread. At the top: seniors who'd already mastered the art of looking like they had their lives figured out despite being just as clueless as everyone else.

"Listen," Jordan whispered, leaning across the lunch table. "My cousin's friend's brother makes bank selling these custom vitamins online. Like, we could totally do this."

Maya raised an eyebrow. "You want us to sell vitamins? To who? The cross country kids already take enough supplements to kill a horse."

"Not just vitamins, Maya. Lifestyle upgrades."

Jordan's **dog**, Buster—a rescue terrier mix with one ear that flopped and conviction that squirrels were his mortal enemies—would've had better business sense. Buster at least knew that sometimes you just had to lie in sunbeams and wait for good things to happen. Jordan was all hustle, zero patience, and exactly enough confidence to be dangerous.

The scheme lasted exactly two weeks. Jordan spent his savings on "promotional materials" (stickers that said "VITAMIN GANG" in font that was definitely not copyrighted) and bought bulk multivitamins from some sketchy website. The plan: rebrand them as "academic performance enhancers" and sell them to stressed students during finals week.

"That's literally just false advertising," said Carlos, who was probably going to be valedictorian if he didn't stress-combust first. "Also, those are literally Flintstones vitamins."

"They're RETRO," Jordan insisted. "That's the aesthetic."

The operation collapsed when Jordan's mom found his "business inventory" scattered across his bedroom floor and Buster decided to taste-test the profits. The emergency vet visit for possible vitamin poisoning cost more than Jordan had made selling exactly twelve bottles to desperate sophomores.

But here's the thing nobody tells you about failing spectacularly: it builds character. Jordan's brief reign as the Vitamin King of sophomore year became the thing people mentioned at parties for months. "Remember when Jordan tried to sell us Flintstones vitamins as brain boosters?" And instead of being embarrassing, it became this weird badge of honor.

Because at fifteen, having a ridiculous failure story is better than having no story at all. And Maya, Carlos, and Jordan remained friends through it all—united by shared secondhand embarrassment and the collective wisdom that sometimes, the best memories are the ones that make you cringe so hard you see stars.