I Didn't Choose the Caffeine Life (Oh, But I Did)

When I was a kid, I started drinking coffee with my mom to feel grown up. I'm pretty sure everyone did this. I remember asking her for coffee and rejecting cream and sugar as if it were ricin, wanting so badly to prove how hardcore and adult I could be.

And, of course, I hated it. I drank the whole damn cup and I hated every sip. The more I hated it, the more I felt compelled to finish it. When I was done, I asked for more and continued to hate it even more strongly. This process repeated itself until I turned 16 and actually started to enjoy coffee. (Note: I didn't hate coffee the day before I turned 15 and then become a die-hard fan a mere 24 hours later. Unfortunately, my life did not reflect the plot of Teen Witch. It was more like Mannequin or, as it is better known, Creepy Guy Bangs Mannequin and Imagines Mannequin is Real to Soften the Blow of Realizing His Depraved Nature.)

Yes, she is definitely real, Andrew McCarthy. You aren't making any of this up to sate your loneliness.

So I started to love coffee in some Stockholm Syndrome twist of fate. It had me in its grasp. When my mother and I went shopping on the weekend, I would innocently say, "Can we grab some coffee on the way?" I really meant, "Please give me some of that delicious caffeine and if you don't I'll fall asleep standing up while looking at graphic tees* and I won't even apologize for it." Apparently, all the time I had spent convincing myself I loved coffee had resulted in me actually loving coffee. I don't understand how it happened either, but sometimes love doesn't make sense. 

*I wore graphic tees when I was a teenager. It is one of my biggest regrets, along with enjoying seasons one and two of Grey's Anatomy completely unironically. 

I started my first grown-up journalism job roughly two weeks ago, which is very exciting for me. Somehow, I was more excited about buying my first grown-up on-the-go coffee mug for the job. This caffeine addiction is a sickness, I tell you. Not the kind of sickness I need treatment for, though. It's more like a sickness that has become a part of me. It has shaped who I am, and I will never, ever go back to Pre-Caffeine Sam. She did not have the hard edge I have now. She did not know the caffeine life.

I wanted to include a photo of my new coffee mug in this post, but I accidentally left it at home this morning in-between convincing my boyfriend to rummage through the dumpster to save my old straight iron to make sure it was broken and eating the egg toast he made me before running out to the dumpster. (Seriously, I don't understand why he does the things he does. To say I am lucky to be with him is a bigger understatement than Shia LaBeouf's "I fucked up" tweet following his plagiarizing scandal.) 

I did, however, bring my Aristocats mug to work, because I am super adult and all that jazz. See?

Dat side-eye

Now I average five to seven cups of coffee a day. I am not ashamed. I have embraced the coffee life. You can call me Queen Caffeine. (No, really, call me that. I like the assonance.)