On Amazon’s Newfound Pavlovian Reaction to the Word “Coffee”

I’ve been a caffeine addict since middle school. At home we were only allowed to drink caffeine free soda because of my mother’s heart condition (please note that my mother didn’t actually DRINK soda at this point, which leads me to believe this was just a clever ruse to keep my brother and I away from caffeine), so when two friends (twin sisters, actually) introduced me to Jolt Cola during a theatre camp, well, things got interesting. My first memorable experience with a caffeine rush involved me lying on a table claiming my legs didn’t work anymore.

Since then, I have continued on my caffeine fiending ways, all the while avoiding that King of all things Caffeine: coffee.

I had never liked the taste of coffee. Never. I tried, BELIEVE ME, I tried. But I just couldn’t make myself like it. I felt like I was somehow betraying my angsty high school poet stereotype by not being able to drink black coffee and chain smoke cigarettes. This got worse in college when I discovered that I liked certain drinks from Starbucks, but apparently “good” English Majors didn’t drink Starbucks coffee, that was reserved for those hussies in the Statistics department. No, English Majors drank at independent coffee houses where the baristas were hot and the coffee was…actually, pretty fucking LOUSY.

I could drink lattes with no problem, once I got over my English Major anxiety (in other words, when I graduated college) I started frequenting Starbucks for the sheer joy of their mochas. And, seasonally, Pumpkin Spice Lattes or Peppermint Mochas (tall, non-fat with whip, je parles Starbucks!)…it’s almost that time of year again, folks!. But I still couldn’t drink out of the pot coffee.

Until recently.

See, I’m still a caffeine addict. But with recent adjustments to my diet (namely, cutting out soda almost completely) I was left without a viable way of getting caffeine. When I had money I could grab a mocha in the morning before work, but with my shoestring budget in the past few months that just hasn’t been possible.

Sodas from the machine downstairs cost money.

In my office, coffee is free.

So it was time to buckle down and drink up.

I still can’t drink it black, I prefer it with a decent amount of milk and sugar. But it’s coffee. And it’s to the point where I really CAN’T go a day without it. In fact, my mother has informed me she’s buying me a Target gift card for my birthday so I can actually buy myself a damned coffee pot for my apartment. That way, weekends aren’t torturous as I try to figure out how I’m getting my damned fix.

So what have I learned, folks? That anyone, no matter how strong, can be made a slave to tiny fucking beans.