I gave up coffee about three years ago. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. Coffee and I had some good times together before the months I found myself lying in bed at night and whining about the stabbing pain “in my heart.” Sadly, I had no fast food to cut out of my diet; I didn’t drink soda at the time; and some specialist used the treadmill stress test to confirm that I had no congenital heart failure. The culprit was the bean. Damn.
I would estimate that I only made it through the first year completely caffeine free. I even gave away my loyal coffee maker. I held on to the French press for nostalgia’s sake. But then I started teaching in Suisun (think Budweiser factory), and feeling the bump of the little yellow dots on the lane line jerk my eyes open every morning during my commute caused me to become a regular of the Dixon Starbucks. (I skipped the drive thru since I felt getting out of the car and walking helped wake me up a bit. It is seriously a miracle I made it through that year without getting in an accident.)
Years two and three were all tea, the occasional mocha, and a far too many soy chais. Expensive and inferior. The taste does not compare and the power of the caffeine is lacking. I have no doubt that my Pepsi addiction never would have come to fruition had I not been starting my day with a drink no darker than my skin tone. Obviously I would fade by noon and be scrounging for quarters.
A few months ago, I decided I would try to get back on coffee. I had an iced coffee in May that gave me that wonderful, overly antsy, jittery feeling which I hadn’t experienced since freshman year of college. So good. In the last few weeks, as the mornings got colder, I went for a few real, honest to goodness cups of coffee, black. Prior to today, I was only able to drink down an inch between the hours of 6 and 3. Nevertheless, that stained cardboard cup provided some comfort just sitting there on my desk. Not to mention the smell. I think the moment I pick up that cup from the Peets counter, my nostrils are immediately filled with the aroma and it lingers—no overwhelms me—so that all I can smell until I shower after my evening run is Major Dickenson’s’ Blend.
I’m sure my former barista amigas will concur that when you work at a coffee shop, you need an entire separate work wardrobe, right down to your bra. The smell of coffee is so fully penetrating and lasting that it only takes grinding one pound of Columbian before everything touching your body is forever tainted with the aroma.
Today I was able to drink down 2/3 of the cup. But by 3:00, my gut was in knots and all I could smell was coffee oozing from my pores, clinging to my hair and to my clothes. In my paranoid state, I had asked more than one person (including a student), “Do I smell like coffee?” I had no happy jitter, just an unhappy stomach that felt like it was suffering from a long night of drinking. As I stepped into my car an hour later, I was hit by the stench of coffee that had spilled all over my lovely upholstery that morning.
And that was all it took. I used to drive coffee catering around when I worked for some horrible independently owned South Davis coffee shop and my old Corolla reeked of coffee. I will not let the same thing happen to my Yaris. Good thing gas prices are down. I’ll be squandering my money on soy chais and afternoon Pepsis once again. Oh well. The smell of coffee is so much sweeter when it is something I’m lusting after and not covered in.
