It's almost official

I have now gone almost an entire day without coffee... That is not to say I have gone caffeine free, but I have gone caffeine-lite. I've gone to the bag.

Anyone who has read this blog for very long will know what a momentous occasion this is, and how improbable. I am a lover of the thickest, sludgiest, crude-oil-ish brew that I can extract from my french press. I actually refuse to drink coffee outside the house, because no one makes it with the appropriate oomph. But, in cultivating such coffee extremism, I sowed the seeds of my undoing.

It was, perhaps inevitable, but I have gone my entire adult life without it happening, so it nonetheless came as a surprise yesterday when we were out of my coffee. Not coffee. MY coffee. Dark roast Sumatran. Nothing else will do.

Speedy and I had had an impromptu lie-in that morning and I was running a bit late-- no time to dash out to the store and buy a fresh pound. Instead I grabbed a bag of, UGH, Colombian, left over from the brunch I hosted for my friend's recent wedding.

Offer me Colombian coffee and I will invariably say, "No thanks, I'll just suck the moisture out of some sod and call it good." I just hate the stuff. But it was the cheapest thing at the co-op and we were serving brunch to a big crowd. Hence, the leftover crap that wound up in my freezer.

Had we not had such a lovely lie-in I probably would have found some none-too-nice way of making Speedy go get me coffee, as she was the last to make coffee and should have known we were out and therefore bore full responisbility for the crisis... But, I was feeling particularly smooshy toward her at that moment and in an instance of rare affability, decided, what the hell-- how bad could Colombian be?

Very, very bad, as it turns out. Worse than sucking sod. Worse, in fact than monkey piss. (And I say that with experience to back it up.)

So bad, in fact that one sip in, I dumped the entire contents of the french press and braced myself for getting to work without chemical aids, where I would then do my best to compensate by hitting the single-cup coffee maker as many times as it took.

But I got to work and AUGH CRISIS oh my god angry execs nervous boss and memos to write and emails flying and shit hitting fans... and then it was noon. And there had been no coffee.

And I thought, hmm. So far, I have lived. So, I had no coffee (save for the sip of inferior monkey piss) ALL DAY.

And I slept really, really well.

And I forgot to get more Sumatran on my way home last night. So this morning I tried a cup of the Earl Grey my friend had brought me from Harrods. And with plenty of honey, it was kind of good. Good enough for the second cup too.

And I drank two more cups of Lipton at work.

So the caffeine, well, we're still friends. But I'm taking a break from coffee for a while. It might ease the transition. But I am going to Ghana with 48 sachets of the new Starb$cks instant coffee just in case.