Yesterday, at about 7 p.m., I was making myself dinner in the kitchen. I passed the coffee maker and realized, with a start, that I had gone an entire day without drinking so much as a single sip of joe.
It happened by accident, thanks largely to Kasey. With Kish out of town, I’m in charge of our little beagle mix buddy. When I woke up, she needed to be fed and walked immediately — with Kasey, pretty much everything having to do with food or bodily functions is urgent and requires urgent barking treatment — and I decided we would just head in to office after she got her grub. Once at the office, I kept my office door closed so Kasey would stay put, and I didn’t want to risk her darting out and running around the floor if I left to make myself a cup of coffee.
By the time I was done with work and we had walked home, the morning hours had passed without the customary java infusion. I set out to a nearby eatery to get some lunch — a meal where my customary drink of choice is always water with lemon — and then puttered around the house doing some chores and reading. By the time dinnertime rolled around, I discovered that I had been surprisingly coffeeless for the whole day.
This isn’t that big of a deal, obviously. I’m sure that once or twice during the 40-odd years that I have been drinking coffee that I have missed a day . . . but I sure don’t remember it. Coffee has been a standard part of my daily routine, but routines are made to be broken.
One of my friends, the Wrestling Fan, decided a few years ago to give up coffee. He’s happy he did it and says he feels less wired and more relaxed. I’m not ready to give coffee up entirely — in fact, I’m happily slurping down a cup as I write this — but it’s nice to know that I can skip a day or two now and then without feeling terrible withdrawal symptoms. Thanks, Kasey, for showing me that living in the coffee-free zone can be done.
