Love in the Time of Coffee

It burns.

I’m a drug addict. Let me rephrase. We’re all drug addicts. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Ghostma, Ghostpa – all driven by the insatiable urge to load up on caffeine and carry on like high-functioning meth-heads while commuting to work, enjoying retirement, or haunting retirees, respectively. The weird thing is, I’ve only been drinking coffee for about two years, yet feel like a lifetime user. That’s what happens when you become entirely dependent on a substance, be it liquid, solid, gaseous, plasma, or plasma screen: it becomes so enmeshed with your daily routine that you start forgetting it’s a substance in the first place. Here’s an example: this morning I showered, brushed my teeth, brushed my hair, brushed my dolls’ hair, fixed breakfast for Wife and myself, got dressed, got undressed, got dressed, pulled Cat’s claws from last night’s ambush out of skin, made the bed, washed the dishes, put the thing in the thing, vacuumed the ceiling, ran four miles, and chinned, pushed, and sat eighty-six ups…all in just fifteen minutes! Yep, just another routine morning in the life of me. Nothing out of the ordinary or amiss or alarming or – HEY, WAIT A SECOND! I never used to be so productive in the morning! In high school I used to sleep-walk through all my classes before lunch! In college, all my classes before Commencement Day! I’m not a morning person! I’m not even a night person! At best, I’m like a mid-to-late-morning-to-mid-to-late-afternoon person! Where the heck did I get all this energy? Oh. That’s right. The six cups of coffee I just drank.