CHAPTER TWO: CHARLEY DON’T SURF

Fun Fact:

The phrase charley horse—used to describe a muscle cramp—allegedly dates back to 1880s baseball, when players likened their leg spasms to an old, limping horse named Charley who worked the ballpark.

Charley? Say it ain’t so!

Therefore, I believe Charley’s ghost is the one who stormed into my bedroom at exactly the witching hour, hellbent on revenge, and inflicted such a violent cramp in my right calf that I woke up convinced an actual horse was standing on me.

Now, here’s where you might start to question my sanity—not for accusing a famous ghost horse of assault, but for how long Charley’s name stayed at the top of my suspect list. The reason? Lack of a better answer.

I’d already been guzzling water like it was my job.

I even drank those neon-colored Gatorades I hate.

I’d seen joggers in Central Park swear by Pedialyte, so I found the flavor that sucked the least and carried it to work like a damn security blanket.

I even fell for the “French vitamins = instant health” logic and dropped real money on some overpriced, high-vibe electrolyte powder.

And yet, at exactly 3 a.m., I still found myself crippled by a charley horse from hell.

So what went wrong?

If I trusted the product, then logic points to environmental factors.

Or… Charley really was out for blood.

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The Perfect Storm

A charley horse at 3 a.m. is annoying. A charley horse in my world is a problem.

A) My job is physically & mentally demanding.

Let’s be honest—fun jobs are easy to love. But love or not, work is work, and high mileage is high mileage.

Steven Spielberg, in an old behind-the-scenes interview, once said that his most critical pre-production ritual was:

1. Hit the gym.

2. Lift like hell.

3. Prepare for battle.

The Grocery Getter.

B) I ride a motorcycle.

The FDR at rush hour is not a road.

It’s a psychological experiment in how quickly one human can learn to despise all other humans.

If you’re going to survive that stretch of asphalt lunacy, you’d better have a fast reflex, precise control, and zero hesitation. And as I nearly found out the hard way, there’s no “almost” in motorcycle physics.

C) I play video games.

Somewhere out there, an old TED Talk once compared active-duty Navy SEALs with elite Call of Duty players.

• In multiple categories, their reaction times were nearly indistinguishable.

• In some cases, the gamers were faster.

There can be only one.

Which made me think: if playing a game can train split-second survival skills, then what else could be optimized?

And, let’s be real—this wasn’t just about survival.

I was one of those kids who walked into a movie theater in 1977, saw Star Wars for the first time, and walked out convinced I was going to fly an X-Wing one day.

A younger me about to discover something good…(concept)

It wasn’t until I discovered women that I set that dream aside.

But now? I see no practical reason not to fly one.

Which made me think: if playing a game can train split-second survival skills, then what else could be optimized?

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The Solution Was Obvious.

A turbocharged, gamer-tested, SEAL-team-certified supplemental supplement from my exact peer group.

All I had to do was find a guy my age, working a physically brutal job, who also had the mental endurance and reflexes sharp enough to ride a motorcycle every day and get home in one piece.

Did the Mayor of Easytown just hand me the key to the city?

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Concept & AI-Rendered Art by Athena (In collaboration with Keith DeCristo)

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