My name is Maxx, and I’m a coffeeholic. I’ve been drinking 40 ounces of coffee every day for the past two years. That’s roughly four soda cans worth of coffee every day.
* * *
Every time I walk into the East coffee shop I’m greeted with a “There’s our best customer!” I slide to the front of the coffee shop and slip the cashier 50 cents. I maneuver myself around the person in front of me to get my coffee from the pot behind the one they’re using. I’m anxious for my coffee in hopes that it’ll alleviate my massive headache.
The other day as I was filling my thermos, I said to the coffee shop cashier, “I’ve got to have my fix of caffeine or else I’ll be a zombie like the rest of society,” I closed my thermos and zipped out of the coffee shop and into college prep across the hall.
My thermos sat on my desk for half an hour taunting me. It’s too hot to drink and I can’t think about the secant segment of a parabola right now. I wait. And wait. And wait with a headache. I need my coffee. And FINALLY is it ready?
No. I just burned my tongue. Half an hour later: sweet fulfillment as I drink my coffee and my headache recedes.
As it is, I drink my coffee black. The bitterness also helps keep me awake. I used to drink my coffee with every additive they had at the coffee shop. And I had it down to a science: six squirts of French Vanilla creamer. Three seconds of caramel. A bit of milk. Stir. The smell. Perfect.
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My freshman year, I couldn’t stand the taste of black coffee, but I had insomnia and needed something to keep me from passing out in computer apps. The girl next to me in computer apps was a grumpy sour puss until she had her coffee. About half-way through the class, she’d pep up and all of the sudden be the kind and energetic girl she is. So I figured it might work for me too.
I tried it black. That was awful, so I added all the additives the coffee shop had to offer. I loved it, but there were repercussions. One day after school at wrestling practice when we were running, and drinking all the sugar-and-additive-filled coffee I drank that day killed my endurance. I couldn’t breathe. I should’ve known better; whenever I have sugar in any form, I lose all my endurance. That practice sucked. I made that mistake more than once. Eventually I stopped wrestling. This is when I lapsed and became a coffeeholic. When I no longer needed to vigorously exercise after school, this opened up an opportunity for a productive addiction.
I do not want to count how many quarters I’ve given the coffee shop. I’ve spent at least $380 on coffee at the coffee shop over my high school career. It’s been worth every penny.
* * *
Last year I drank my coffee out of a plastic blender cup. It was excellent because of its 20 ounce
prep. Boo yah, difference quotient.
* * *
In a way, my life is controlled by coffee. When I get a headache, I get more coffee. If I need something done, I get more coffee. If I can’t sleep, I get more coffee. It’s my miracle drug, my penicillin, my rice: the everything food, my duct tape, the fisize, and two cups per day. I got more bang for my buck, but the paradise of economic amounts of coffee would not last forever.
In physics class, Mr. Martin was talking about superimposing waves. I was about to doze off, and my coffee tasted like old soap. I love coffee, but the taste was horrendous. Even at its worst taste, I still couldnt keep from drinking it.
Hungry before lunch, I had some dried pineapples in my lunchbox that I’d been meaning to try, and expecting something sweet, I was given a taste of horror. It was dry, chewy and bland. It made the soap-coffee taste worse. Oh god, I couldn’t take notes on the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow with this taste, and I couldn’t find my water. Or my soap-coffee. Help.
I decided to stuff my mouth like a squirrel with peanut butter crackers to sterilize the taste. I chewed. Slowly. Determined not to vomit. I must’ve looked something-awry because Mr. Martin looked at me and laughed at my stuffed cheeks.
The taste was excruciating. I decided to wash it down with some coffee, forgetting it tasted like soap. It had grind in it.
Grind in my coffee. I was going to cry. The taste was already like dried pineapple and soap-coffee, but now it’s soap-coffee grind and dried peanut butter crackers. It was the worst palpable experience of my life. But despite this, I got another cup of coffee that day.
I drink my coffee black now because I later realized that the soap-coffee taste was due to the absorption of the coffee taste into the plastic blender cup because of all of the additives. It took five more cups of coffee, a week of soaking in Dawn and 12 washes in the dishwasher to realize that the cup was the problem. Whoops.
* * *
Robotics trip. Exhausted from taking photos with a coffee headache. I convinced my driver to give me a ride to Starbucks. Drank five shots of espresso black. It tasted horrible, but I finished an English essay that I’d effectively neglected to do for weeks. After that, I slept sounder than I had in days. (My grandma used to drink coffee before bed. It put her right to sleep. I’m assuming it was having a similar effect.) It wakes me up when I need and puts me to sleep when I don’t need to do things.
I love coffee. The energy, the taste, the headaches when I don’t drink it. Okay, I don’t love the headaches, so I just drink more.
Sunday night. Headache. No homework done. Seems like a good time to have a coffee with my pal Ty. One dirty south, my and Ty’s favorite, with a hint of cinnamon, more caffeine than is healthy, and a smell of beauty and coffee, from the MudPie (a coffee shop downtown), and a deep discussion about The Scarlet Letter later, I got home and rocked two essays and did my college x-all.
I don’t know where I’d be without coffee.
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