Today my doctor told me I have to quit drinking coffee. That's like telling Popeye he has to quit eating spinach! Or making a tiger go vegetarian, perhaps. My regular doctor is out on maternity leave for the next few months. Her replacement spent all of five minutes with me before telling me my life needs to change. Apparently my blood pressure is too high and my entire cardiovascular system is about to explode like a water baloon, spraying the walls with a red mist, or something like that.
So she told me to exercise, lower the sodium in my diet, and [gasp] eliminate caffeine. Eliminate. Caffeine.
So I looked her in the eye and said, "I can't even tell you with a straight face that I'm going to do that.
"Soft drinks, or are you a coffee man?" she asked.
"Coffee." Of course. So she suggested my first cup be regular coffee, and after that . . . I can't even say it. I can't even type the "d-word".
Coffee is the nectar of my life. Coffee is passion and joy. Coffee is consciousness, it is courage and strength, it is the scourge of migraines and the bringer of clarity and wit. I am a machine for transforming caffeine into productive work, or at least into semi-intelligible political ranting. The coffee is the life. It consumes me as it makes me whole. Coffee makes me burn brightly. It enables me to speak. It draws me out of my shell and sends me gibbering incomprenesibly down the street. I love coffee. Black in the morning, weighed down by cream and sugar in the afternoon, steamed in a tiny porcelain cup after dinner, iced in a plastic cup from Dunkin' Donuts. Desire for coffee gets me out of bed in the morning and reminds me to leave the office and eat something for lunch. The coffee is the life. My master, my cause, my inspiration, my sustenance. my reason for being. Glorious, glorious coffee.
The luckiest woman in the world. Because her doctor lets her drink coffee. Bathe in it, in fact.
But what else can I do? I can join a gym. God dammit, I can sign up for Bally's or something, like the women of the house have done. I'll cut out junk food, I swear. I'll bring a sandwich and an apple to work every day in a dorky-looking lunch bag. I'll never eat at Mr. Taco again, even though the staff there pretend like they like me and mix the milk and sugar into my afternoon cup of *sob* I'll do anything I swear just don't take away my java and make me drink d... de ... aw hell I can't even say it.
6 comments:
Gosh, everybody has a neurologist these days. And here I thought I was special...
Here's what you do. Show up stinking drunk to your next doctor's appointment. Tell the doc that you did, in fact, cut out coffee and have replaced it with Old Crow. Maybe even watch a few old episodes of Beavis and Butthead for inspiration. [The principal used to drink Old Crow and always had the shakes.]
Good thing you'll never have to worry about being pregnant! Of course reports of things you can't have while pregnant have been blown wildly out of proportion. Apparently, a limited amount of caffeine (like 1 - 2) a day and alcohol are not going to kill you or the baby.
But enough about me. No, wait, here's something else: I have never been much of a coffee drinker but now that I've seen your coffee spokesmodel I am going to start! RAWR!
Thistles: he may not have to worry about getting pregnant, but he definitely should worry about going through decaf hell with me a couple times if he's responsible for it. Ditto on the wine.
El: you're not the only one. Defective Yeti has a hilarious post today.
I feel your pain. Had to give up coffee myself b/c of migraines and it nearly killed me -- my father even had a coffee business at one point and I grew up on the lovely smell of fresh roasted beans. Think I had my first cup when I was 8 -- more milk and suger than anything, but I was hooked. Have replaced it with tea (for some reason not linked to migraines in the same way) but I will be honest. Sometimes I would kill for a nice hot cuppa joe. So sometimes I have one. Steve is right -- moderation and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
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