...about coffee.
You know, I was never addicted to coffee before college. I was proud of the fact that I didn't need it to stay awake, and I couldn't understand both my mother's and Husband's need to have it in order to feel properly awake. Sure, I'd have the occasional Mocha Frappuccino when I was feeling cool and artsy while browsing Barnes & Noble... okay, no. I just was having a chocolate craving and needed something quick to satisfy it.
Honestly, at that point I didn't even like the taste of coffee. It had to be thoroughly sweetened and had to have copious amounts of chocolate added for me to drink it and enjoy it.
But then my freshman year started last fall... and I was doomed.
It started innocently enough. One morning, after having been up until 3am writing a creative narrative for English 160, I knew I wasn't going to make it through a full day of school and work without something to keep me energized. So I stopped at a gas station on my way to my 8:30 Philosophy class and grabbed a danish and a French Vanilla cappuccino. (Yes, I know, those 'cappuccinos' dispensed from the little machine have no right to be called that, but oh well...)
Anyway, that was just the beginning, because I liked that French Vanilla anti-Cappuccino, and so whenever I had a late night, I found myself getting one the following morning. Increasingly, my definition of a 'late night' started to relax (although 2am is hardly early when you're getting up at 7am), and so I frequented the gas station more and more.
Then, I discovered Dunkin Donuts' 'Dunkaccino' one day when I stopped in for a quick bagel, and was instantly hooked. I mean, goodness! A mocha cappuccino!?! Delicious! And so, I became a frequent customer at the Donut shop...
Things didn't start to get hairy until the spring semester, however. Taking 19 credits, double majoring, and working full time was just way too much for me to tackle without some kind of artificial stimuli to keep my brain working at the necessary pace. Suddenly, a small Dunkaccino wasn't cutting it, so I started getting Mocha lattes. At this point I was stopping for coffee about 3 times a week, which really wasn't too bad.
However, April rapidly came upon me, complete with 12 finals, a research paper, Holy Week, and a multitude of concerts and competitions. Suddenly I had way more on my plate, requiring more energy, and Dunkin Donuts seemed to anticipate this need by making April the month of the .99 cent iced coffee. How perfect!
Alas and alack, my need for coffee grew to a daily necessity, and it was then that I was done for. Now, school having been out for a month and half, my schedule dramatically reduced to something more do-able and less superhuman, I still find myself stopping for that daily coffee (I don't think it helps that I've discovered that I like caramel coffee too...).
What brings me to reminisce on my path to coffee-dependence, you ask? Well, the simple fact that today I decided that I didn't have time to stop for one. And now it's only 1:30 in the afternoon, and I am tired, yawning like a sleep-deprived insomniac, with a tiredness behind my eyes that I cannot, will not tolerate. I know it's because I didn't get that coffee. Part of me wants to deprive myself, suffer though, try to beat the withdrawal symptoms... but there's also so much that needs to be done!! I need to work on revising my novel, answer business emails, do some data entry work, etc, etc... And I know, I just know, that I'll never get through it all without a proper pick-me up.
*sigh*
And so, defeated by the horrible coffee monster, Soaring Soprano is going off for a coffee run.
UPDATE: I am so glad that I went for the coffee run! On my way, I saw that a local music store was closing, so I stopped in to peruse the items they were selling. Blissfully, I found a copy of Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben that I need for my concert this fall, as well as some other pieces I'd been looking for- all on sale!!! Providential, I say! Positively providential!
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