Get our Newsletter!Today, like many days, my suicidal alarm clock warns me that I’ve hit the snooze button too many times. I swear I hear it say, “If you don’t get out of bed now, you might as well just call in sick.” Since I have no PTO days to spare, this is not an option. Wednesday is off to a fantastic start!
With zero motivation to open my eyes, I somehow manage to crawl out of bed and make it down the stairs to the kitchen without injuring myself. Priority number one: get the coffee brewing. I make my breakfast while waiting for the sweet caffeinated nectar to brew, and I quickly regret drinking so much wine on a Tuesday night. Hangovers, clearly, are the result of an idea that seemed so good at the time.
Through my splitting headache and groggy sense of reality, I hear the gurgling of the coffee machine. My brain cells rejoice – the coffee is ready!
My wife makes fun of me because I let the coffee cool in my cup for about 15 minutes before I drink it. It’s probably a stupid habit, but I’ve burned my tongue on hot coffee so many times that I’m surprised I don’t have scar tissue lining my mouth. I immediately feel more awake once the warmish dark liquid (3 Splenda packets, no cream) enters my digestive track. The headache fades and my senses sharpen; I fall in love with coffee all over again.
Yet I know my relationship with coffee is tumultuous, not unlike the saga of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. There are things I cannot stand about coffee. I already mentioned that it burns my mouth when it’s too hot; the abuse is not appreciated. It also makes me have to pee every 20 minutes, undoubtedly a side effect of (a) I drink too much coffee, and (b) I drink strong, heavily caffeinated coffee (which speeds up my metabolism). Maybe that’s more information than you wanted to hear, but imagine having your significant other call you at the office every 20 minutes – it’s hard to focus and you wouldn’t get much work done.
The point is that I love coffee. And I hate it. I don’t think I could live without it.
