A New Morning Buzz

What in the world caused the coffee addiction? Anybody who knows me has been aware of my distaste for the drink. It's bitter! It's basically drinking dirt (can you believe Starbucks makes all that money from selling grounded dirt) and that's what it tastes like unless you put it a lot of creamer, even more sugar, and a good pile of whip cream.

Yet for a month I drank 2 cups every morning, and usually another two at some point during the day. After 26 years of no coffee, that was a lot of coffee all at once in a very short amount of time. There were days when I wasn't able to sit still like when George of the Jungle eats a mound of it in the movie of his namesake.My son thought it hilarious because his daddy was acting like him with constant movement (although his short attention span is apparently natural for a toddler) and my wife thought that I was jumpy and was concerned she may have to try and exorcise me.

Then one day I ran out of cool whip and creamer and tried the dark stuff without any taste alterations other than sugar, and yuck. I realized it was time to put it away and leave it alone, that I was more than likely only drinking it to satisfy my strange craving for cool whip (2 containers a week, no kidding). Guess what happened? I could sit still, the world slowed down, and I could no longer actually hear my heart beating faster than the beat in a Relient K song.However, since my kids still prevent my wife and I from getting a full night's sleep, I've been looking for a tasty way to get my morning buzz, my caffeine jump start so I can be alive, awake, alert and partially enthusiastic. I feel I have to have that buzz otherwise when people see me the first thing they say is "Are you alright, you don't look well?" Don't you love it when people point out to you what you already know? I have a mirror, and I use it every now and then (like when my hair gets slightly lengthy, as in I need to use a comb and a mirror to maintain my partially good looking somewhat manly physique), I know what I look like.

So I went to my old fall back. Tea. I embraced my British background and tried some Earl Grey with some lemon and a bit of sugar. Not sure if Gram drank it but if she didn't, Jean Luc Picard did and he was quite a successful captain of the star ship Enterprise in a much better Star Trek show than its predecessor. But, for some reason it didn't make much sense to replace drinking grounded dirt water with dirt and leaves flavored water. Had to put an x on that idea, I have principles after all and tea doesn't taste that great without flavor additives either.

I dislike orange juice, I can't afford energy drinks and I don't think my heart could survive prolonged exposure to them anyway. I had a friend in school who drank probably three or more Monster drinks a day. Every now and then he passed one on to me in the morning and I would drink it and have insomnia which forced me to turn the TV up louder to drown out the crazy caffeine induced voices in my head. That only lasted until the TV woke up my wife who was confused why I'd be watching the Back to the Future trilogy all night long on a school night and after explaining the evil energy drink would compassionately say "Turn down the TV, I didn't drink it so I shouldn't get punished for it." Inevitably the voices came back when the TV was turned down, so at least I wasn't lonely.

So that leaves milk or water or crystal light to help me get motivated to get up and at 'em each morning. I know I should drink water, and I do every day with the multi-vitamins my wife MAKES me take. Seriously, I don't see the need for swallowing fish oil, no matter what people say. But, really, I don't really like to drink water, I compare it to eating a plain burger with no cheese or anything else in or on it, it just plain and boring and tasteless. Milk I use with my daily cereal and crystal light is also really expensive and doesn't taste good hot. Then there's cocoa, which is best prepared with marshmallows and whip cream, and I'm avoiding whip cream as I've heard the best way to break an addiction is to avoid it. So no cocoa.

Basically, I haven't found a way to get my morning buzz. I've been telling my wife about it and about my need for one and my attempts to locate one, and I asked her for help. Lately we've both been racking our brains for an answer, because buzzes are a necessity until our kids go to bed on time and always sleep through the night waking up after six in the morning.

I think my son heard me mention my need for a new morning buzz to get going. As he often does, my son came in this morning to crawl into bed and tell us that he's awake and he would kindly like it if we would get up with him. But this morning he did something a bit unusual. Instead of bringing his blanky and teddy in with him and waking up with a teddy bear being shoved in my face with my son asking me to kiss it I awoke to a different sound. "Halt, I order you to halt! I have a laser and I will use it, whirr whirr (that's a laser sound)! Silence agent of Zurg!" My son traded in his cute and quiet teddy bear for his talking, loud plastic Buzz Lightyear doll and was making him talk to me to get me to wake up. Not much makes get up and out of bed faster than Buzz and Woody talking loudly to each other at 6:15in the morning while Buzz pokes me like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Woody keeps probing my nose. Good news is, I think I've found my new morning Buzz. The downside.....plastic fingers shoved up my nose isn't all that pleasant.BLT says......apparently you can get a good morning buzz without drinking dirt or eating copious amounts of cool whip........but do you want to?