I’m sure the three nouns in the title of this blog seem incredibly unrelated. They’re not. Just bear with me. Soon you will see the light.

I am writing this blog with that fuzzy cotton head sensation that one can only have when one is caffeine addicted, but when one has not yet imbibed in one’s fix. My vocabulary has been reduced to one-word grunts.

It will take a run to the coffee shop for a two-shot latte to turn me into something approaching my usual chipper self.

But I will not be running to the coffee shop. I will not. No, I won’t do it to myself. I have given up that evil brew—finally—for the millionth time.

I mean it this time. Me and coffee? We’re splitzo. Done. History.

And I’m totally better off. Or, at least, I will be in about 48 more hours after the last of the withdrawal shakes leaves my system.

This, I know, is a somewhat bizarre pledge considering my husband owns a coffee shop.

Yes, my husband? He’s my dealer. There. Now you know how two of the three nouns from this blog’s title are related.

I can directly blame him for my most recent bender, too. It all started Thursday, when he got up bright and early to go rent the car that he would drive to Canada for a weekend bike race. He returned with a rental car and two lattes, one for him and one for me.

I squeezed the stuffing out of him. I told him that he was the best thing that ever happened to me. I suggested he might start a business teaching other husbands how to make their wives ecstatically happy.

Then, I walked away, found a quiet area of the house, and had an experience with my latte that, to a non-coffee drinker, might appear somewhat sexual. I inhaled its scent. I caressed the warm cup between my hands. I kissed the lip of the cup. I drank.

Then I was overcome by what is known in coffee-drinking circles as The Buzz. I instantly became 40
IQ points smarter. I had the energy of Denise Austin. I was happy, positive, and downright spunky. I crossed everything off my to-do list that day, wrote another list, and decimated that one, too.

I LIKE IT BLACK, LIKE MY UNCAFEINATED MOODS

Like most types of junk food, I don’t keep coffee in the house, though. I figure, the more difficult it is for me to make a cup of coffee, the less often I will drink a cup of coffee. You see, when I’m not on a coffee bender, I’m recovering.

Sure, to some people, coffee might seem innocent enough. It’s made from a plant. One might reasonably argue that it counts as a vegetable serving.

Yet I seem to be the most easily addicted person on the planet. It takes increasing amounts of coffee to approach the same initial Buzz. The morning latte must eventually be paired with an afternoon ice coffee.

Eventually, I need two morning lattees, two afternoon ice coffees and, if I allow things to get really bad, a handful of chocolate covered espresso beans throughout the day as needed.

Eventually, the stuff fails to wake me up at all. My eyes permanently take on the sensation of partially licked lollipops. My blood is replaced with wet cement. My gray matter turns into cotton balls. I suffer insomnia at night, but can’t stay awake during the day. I endure wicked stomachaches. The worst part? Every part of me stinks like coffee—my breath, my urine, and my sweat.

I say, “This is enough,” and I quit cold turkey, which is what I’d done about two weeks before my husband brought me that latte I mentioned earlier.

I’d kicked the stuff. I was done. I was coffee free.

And then, just like that, I wasn’t. Worse, my coffee bender somehow evolved into a bad food bender, too.

Oh, the bad food. There. Now you have the third noun in the title. You are almost to the light.

The bad food bender started with a warm apple cider donut. Have you ever had one of those? You haven’t lived until you’ve had one. The taste of one of those sugar-covered, trans fat-filled dough bombs is absolutely worth the year it removes from your life span.

Something about that donut, however, started me on an eating frenzy. I went on to consume the rest of my daughter’s macaroni and cheese. That evening I wolfed down three servings of dinner. I also stayed up a wee bit too late—11:30 p.m.—reading Twilight. Yes, that’s right, it’s the young adult book about vampires and I couldn’t put it down.

When I woke Sunday, I could have sworn I had a degenerative medical condition. That’s how bad I felt.

Today, I’m worse. So I’ve sworn off coffee, bad food, and even alcohol for at least a few weeks. It’s just carrot sticks, melon, chicken breast, romaine, water and green tea for me.

I figure I have just one—perhaps two—days of withdrawal—before I will approach something resembling normalcy.

Oh, the withdrawal. It’s evil. My mouth is dry. My head is… where is it? Do I have a head?

My husband? He’s here today, for a few hours, before leaving for Las Vegas for the rest of the week. He’s not usually clairvoyant but, this morning, he seems to know to stay out of my way. Perhaps it was the loud grunting sound I made when the phone dared to ring.

He turned on jazz for me. When the microwave beeped, he removed my cup of water, inserted a tea bag, and brought it to me.

He’s lovely sometimes, even if this is all his fault and even if I’m annoyed by his chipper existence.

I mean, really, how can he possibly be so chipper? He was away all weekend at a mountain bike race. I’m sure he survived on cheese doodles, hot dogs, beer and the like. Talk about bad food. Then he drove all night last night to get home. He got home around 3:30 a.m. He woke around 7 this morning to return the rental car, hose off his bike, do laundry and then pack for his four-day trip to Las Vegas. As far as I know, he hasn’t had a sip of coffee, tea or cola. No chocolate either.

HOW IS HE SO CHIPPER?

How? It’s just not fair.

Somehow Mr. Strong and Silent can survive on a couple hours of sleep and experience no ill effects. He can also occasionally drink coffee—and occasionally not drink it—without suffering withdrawal. He never has insomnia. He never wakes in the middle of the night—not even for the loudest of thunderstorms.

While in Vegas I’m sure he’ll be up most of each night, get up early each morning, drink I Don’t Want to Know how much alcohol, and consume food that is so bad for you that the FBI has it on a watch list.

He’s four years older than me. By rights this bad living should affect him more, right? Nope. His inner 21 year old seems to continually take it all in stride.

And I hate him for it. At least that’s how I feel about the situation right now. But I don’t know where my head is, either, so I’m a little more frustrated than usual at the moment.

Maybe he’s not all that bad. Perhaps a few days from now—when I am a former coffee drinker who has a fully functional brain, calm nervous system, and normal outlook on life—his chipper, easy going self won’t seem so God awful annoying. Perhaps when he returns from his trip, I will remember how he turned on my favorite music, bought me my tea and stayed out of my way. Perhaps I will take pity on his sleep-deprived, toxic self and I will allow him to sleep in. Perhaps I’ll even run to the store and get him a triple shot latte.

But, perhaps, I will hope he gets addicted. After all, it would serve him right.

TODAY’S PROJECT POINTERS

• Some people suggest giving up coffee in steps. To me, that just lengthens the misery. Go cold turkey. Do it during the work week. It’s easier to deal with your boss while in withdrawal than it is to deal with kids. Trust me on this one.

• The next time you feel the urge to wake yourself up with caffeine, try these natural pick me ups instead: 1) Walk outdoors. 2) Jump up and down for a minute. 3) Smell an orange. 4) Eat something crunchy. 5) Drink something really cold. 6) Take a 5-10 minute nap. 7) Have a quickie.