Today is my second totally caffeine-free day (not counting the minimal 30-50 mg in my morning and afternoon white tea.) The mental fogginess is much worse today than yesterday — I actually wrote an email to a co-worker that began “Hello Meredith.” Of course, the co-worker is a male and certainly not named Meredith. Hello, I’m Meredith, and I’m a recovering caffeine addict.
My friend TJ and I used to say “The what-what?” whenever we were experiencing supreme cluelessness. It came from the show Futurama:
Fry: Bender, where’s the bathroom?
Bender: The what-room?
Fry: The bathroom.
Bender: The bath-what?
Fry: The BATHROOM!
Bender: (pause) The what-what?
Today has just been a string of “what-what” moments.
All day long, repeatedly and most recently at 7pm, I’ve said sheepishly “Oops, sorry. I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
“No wonder Starbucks is closing 600 stores,” said a co-worker when I told him I quit drinking coffee.
Yes, jokes and sympathy abounds, but no one has directly asked me why I quit, which may mean they are drawing their own quiet, mistaken conclusion that I am pregnant. I am not pregnant, nor am I actively pursuing the condition at the moment. No, I am giving up coffee because I’ve drank it my entire adult life, and I want to see if life is any different, either positively or negatively. Maybe I’ll sleep better. Maybe I wouldn’t have mid-afternoon energy crashes. Maybe the sing-song voices in my head will stop ordering me to start fires. At the very least, I will avoid ever again having to choke down coffee that was brewed in a hotel room, airplane, or Starbucks.
