It’s an odd relationship that I have with coffee – an on-again, off-again sort of affair that began when I was in middle school. Though we had run into each other here and there with the occasional sip of my mom’s morning dose, things got really serious when I started unloading a half a pack of Swiss Miss into a single cup of Foldgers Singles microwave brew. A Peppermint Mocha it was not, but I can’t imagine a better way for a 12 year-old to start his day. This routine lasted for a few weeks but eventually died out as was the fate of many of my breakfast habits. I’m not sure what saved me from the daily coffee addiction – probably some offhand remark I overheard about how caffeine would stunt my growth. Growth was key for me at the time because I had aspirations of playing in the NBA one day, and my height was already fighting a losing battle against my Filipino DNA.
I was able to elude the smothering grip of caffeine early on (even favoring Sprite over caffeine drenched Mountain Dew and Coca-Cola as a kid) but I knew this was a never ending battle. Once I got my driver’s license, Caribou Coffee became a frequent meeting spot for me and my friends and in the absence of better ideas, we often spent the better part of our “nights out” there. To give myself the illusion that I was still able to resist coffee’s charms, I frequently ordered the Chocolate Cooler – basically a frozen mocha. Yes it tasted like coffee, and yes it even had caffeine – but I didn’t drink the Chocolate Cooler because I had to have it. I drank it because I enjoyed it – it was a social thing.
During my senior year of high school, the burgeoning world wide web piqued my interest and I started dabbling in web design and web programming. In college, the disease spread and I spent much of my idle time designing and developing my own ideas for the web. You don’t have to dig too deep into the wide world of the web to see just how dangerous this was for me if I planned to avoid the dark roasted underworld of the coffee bean. Some of the obvious indicators are the Mac-toting design junkies that are peppered throughout your favorite brewhouse. This was especially true before the advent of the iPod helped the Mac become part of the mainstream consciousness. In all likelihood, if those Mac addicts weren’t designing the coffee shop’s next print advertisement, they were designing its website. If you know a little bit about computers, then you know that there’s an entire programming language aptly named “Java”. If you’re a web-designer yourself, then you know one of the first popular HTML editors was called CoffeeCup. Coincidence, I think not! As a testament to my strength of will and stubborn resolve, I survived this era of my life without succombing to the world that was surrounding me. Unfortunately, I think that might be part of the reason why I’m not a web designer/programmer by day – much to my dismay.
Fast forward to the relative present, almost four years ago when I arrived for my first day at my present employer. One of the most noteworthy stops on the tour, at least to my escort, was the break area where the mystical coffee maker commanded the room. “No thanks,” I thought to myself, “I vow from this day forward, for as long as I can resist, I will not rely on coffee to start or get me through my day”. To put it simply, I knew that day that I would eventually fall, I just wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. And I’m happy to report that my days still begin with little more than a splash of apple juice and a bottle of water for the road. But the resistence is weakening. Work becomes more and more challenging as the weekends grow ever shorter and when I got married I instantly became the third wheel to a relationship between coffee and my wife. It’s amazing though, how the force of one offhand remark can be so easily tempered by another – or in this case the analysis of a record-setting Olympian’s diet: “… washed down with two cups of coffee”. Well if Michael Phelps is breaking world records hopped up on two cups of coffee, why can’t I punch through spreadsheets jacked up on one? I don’t exactly find myself asking that question everyday, but I’m a little more forgiving of myself if I decide I need a cup to get me through the monotony. And while I’m sure the toned out physique of an Olympian doesn’t carve itself out of overpriced medium sized lattes, I haven’t yet acquired a taste for triple black, hold the cream & sugar. So that’s where I stand with coffee. I know it’s probably more than you’ll ever want to know, but how else was I going to expend all of the energy I got from that medium cinnamon latte – double shot? Those 850 words are probably the only shot I have at getting some sleep tonight.
