A CAFFEINATED MEETING OF THE IN-LAWS

I have never understood why people drink decaffeinated coffee. Maybe it’s because I personally think that any coffee – even the vaunted Starbuck’s – tastes and lingers in the throat like wet cigarettes. How I know the taste and texture of wet cigarettes is simply up to ones conjecture.

What then? The only real reason that justifies drinking coffee is the, nerve-chilling amphetamine buzz one gets from drinking the stuff that’s full of caffeine – Super-Sumatra-Kenyata-Double-Deep-Dark-Roasted-Kona-Brain-Buster.

This and its cousins are brews that are not to be taken lightly. Indeed, they should be saved for special occasions when hyperkinetic attitude adjustment is the order of the day. I had one such day nearly 12 years ago that I remember with an afterglow of yet-to-be-resolved caffeine overdose.

It was the day that I drove the 90 miles from Atlanta to Macon, Georgia, to meet my soon-to-be in-laws. I knew little of them, and what I knew was dire: No, Linda and I could not sleep in the same room. No, I was not welcome at the Thanksgiving table until the engagement was “official.” What did I really do for a living? Would you please explain it again? Do people actually make money doing that?

How to confront such a dire situation? Drink coffee, plenty of it. Start drinking it before breakfast. Then, with my toast and jelly. Then, as I hit the road. Then, rolling down the highway. Then, whenever I stopped for gas – many times, of course, for we all know what coffee does to ones bladder.

Too much. By the time I got to Macon, my ears buzzed, my eyes spun, my teeth and follicles tingled, my arms and legs shook. Worst, my mind raced. The already skeptical in-laws greeted me feebly from the top of the stairs. Uncontrollably, I hailed words like bullets from a machine gun . . .

“Hello-Mom-and-Dad-I-hope-you-don’t-mind-me-calling-you-Mom-and-Dad-because-I’m-so-in-love-with-your-daughter-and-I-promise-to-make-a-good-husband-for-her-even-if-you-don’t-know-what-I do-for-a-llving-and-we-sleep-in-the-same-bedroom-and-I-really-want-to-get-to-know-you-better-because-I-know-that-you’ll-love-me-when-you-really-get-to-know-me-and-I-know-I’ll-have-made-it-when-you-invite-me-to-Thanksgiving-dinner . . . “

The in-laws were astounded. “I hope he doesn’t always talk so fast.”

“Not after he’s taken a cold shower,” Linda explained. “He’s always that way when he has too much caffeine.”

“Too much caffeine?” her mother chafed. “And here I thought it was because he wanted us to love him.”