WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE

Paul is a coffee drinker. I wasn't, until I finally grew up a few months ago and bought a real,
gen-u-wine coffee maker to have at our house. And I feel like a real woman now. Except I'm really not, because I put lots of cream and sugar in it. I'm pretty much a coffee sissy.

Until we had our new coffee maker, I had bought a couple of little things for Paul to use as the only coffee drinker in the house. I bought him a two cup maker. I bought him a four cup maker. I bought him a one cup maker. Actually I think I just bought those things because he is so incredibly hard to buy for on birthdays and Chrtistmas that I just kept trying with the coffee maker idea. They all quickly ended up in storage because Paul would say it was silly to go through the hassle of making coffe at home when he could get it at work.

Translation: why buy coffee for home, when it's FREE at work?

But I noticed that Paul was getting a lot of headaches on the weekends and I, being the expert on all things headache, quickly diagnosed him with caffeine withdrawal. I couldn't stand to see my beloved suffer from a headache each and every weekend.

Translation: it made no sense for him to be out of commission on the weekends when I needed him to help me around the house and to chauffer the kids to and fro during that 48 hour period each week.

The only answer was to make sure he had caffeine on weekends.

Call me an enabler if you will. We all have things we must do to survive.

So I bought the coffee maker. But not before calling Paul and asking if we needed the 8-cup or the 12 cup. We quickly decided on the 12 cup for the times when we have company. Plus, a "cup" according to the box equals 5 ounces. I do not know anybody who drinks a five ounce cup of coffee except June Cleaver. Well, I don't KNOW June Cleaver personally, but I've seen her on TV.

I also bought coffee filters, only to get home and have Paul tell me that our new coffee maker doesn't need filters.

Oh.

With our new coffee maker, I had visions of Paul and myself sitting at the kitchen counter each morning sipping our coffee together, filling each other in about what our days entailed; gazing lovingly at our two offspring as they peacefully got themselves ready for school, laughing and bantering with each other. The kitchen would be sparkly clean, the dog would not be licking her private parts, the laundry would be caught up....

Um. Not so much.

In reality, Paul fills a travel mug while his laptop bag is slung over his shoulder and carries it out the door while saying, "Thanks for making the coffee. Have a good day. I love you."

And the two offspring laughing and bantering? Well, you know....

Then every few days, Paul brings home about 4 travel mugs that have been left in his car and lines them up on the dining room table, or drops them in the sink, without removing the lids; and I look at them and see nothing but shattered dreams.

So, about 4 weeks into my new habit of a morning cup of coffee, I started having heart palpitations. I actually had one "episode" of the type that comes along every now and then with my mitral valve prolapse.

"Hmmm. That's odd. Why am I having palpitations all of a sudden when I had been doing so well?"

I even mentioned it to my doctor and he said if I have another episode he wants to put me on a monitor again for a couple days.

Then. BOING. I realized one day that PERHAPS. JUST PERHAPS. The heart palpitations could be caused by the fact that I'm drinking like 80 mg of caffeine a day, and I'm supposed to have like...none.

I know. I'm pretty brilliant like that.

So I now make 1/2 caf coffee and I drink ONE cup a day. Then have ONE cup of decaf in the afternoon. I've been doing it like that for a few months and no palpitations. Smart me.

The thing is I can't drink just ANY 1/2 caf. I have to drink Folgers Simply Smooth, because I have a history of ulcers (I am just a buffet of medical ailments, aren't I?) But Simply Smooth doesn't come in 1/2 caf.

So we have to make our own. We mix the red can of Folgers Simply Smooth with the green can of Folgers Simply Smooth Decaf and have our own house blend. But this makes coffee buying at our house a very distressing event.

We still have to keep regular on hand for the times Paul is making a pot for himself; but part of that regular has to be mixed with the decaf so we can have our own 1/2 caf (which we have so cratively marked with a sharpie with a big '1/2' on the can) and then we have to have plain decaf on hand for my afternoon cup.

The pressure of figuring the ratio of full caf to decaf needed at our house so that all coffee needs are met is enormous.

And yet I am off to the store to buy coffee. And I'm taking my calculator.