Coffee. It's what powers college students through their studies, is the official sponsor of the average American workday, and possesses magical abilities that can transform a zombie into a functional human being. You want to know what coffee does for me? I'll give you a hint: it's none of the above! Here's what a typical coffee day looks like for your's truly:
9 AM: I drink a small (keep this size in mind) iced vanilla coffee while eating a blueberry muffin to help wake me up for my first class of the day
11 AM: Leg starts to jiggle. I chalk it up to the boredom of learning financial accounting.
12 PM: The jiggling leg has gained a friend! A racing heart! I know that my beating heart cannot be excused for a deep love of accounting and rather must be attributed to my sworn enemy: caffeine.
2 PM: The racing heart has caused a feeling of lightheaded dizziness and nausea. I force myself to eat a banana in attempt to fight the jittery sensation consuming my body. The banana puts up a valiant effort, but alas, it was fighting a losing battle. The caffeine has officially conquered my body, mind, and soul.
4 PM: The caffeine, now just to brag about the utter power it has over me, employs it's favorite tactic: the twitching eye. Not only is this extremely annoying to deal with, but now I look like a spastic psycho to my group project members as they try to take "twitching eye girl" seriously.
6 PM: The eye twitching continues through dinner. At this point, I have grown accustomed to having my vision interrupted by my shuddering eyelid, but clearly my dinner companion has not adjusted to watching a spasm of the eye. It's a painfully awkward meal.
8 PM: Doing homework is nearly impossible due to the page I am reading disappearing under a freakish eyelid. When my vision clears, my attention is diverted to my racing heart. There will not be a lot of homework accomplished tonight.
11 PM: I wave my white flag, officially surrendering myself to the joint victory of caffeine and coffee. All I ask is that they let me sleep. But they are not so kind. They don't want to just win, they want an utter slaughtering of the poor college girl. My eye twitches yet again.
1 AM: I'm still wide awake. My eye is still twitching. I have tossed and turned in my bed more times than I can count. What started out as a quick pick-me-up drink hours beforehand has now caused me to LOSE sleep and make me feel even more tired than before. I feel like crying. It's official. Coffee has broken me.
This timeline is very much NOT an exaggeration. I have relived this day too many times all because of a small coffee beverage. My eye twitch record is 24 hours. I'm not a doctor, but that can't be healthy, can it? The saddest thing about this whole situation is that I actually like the bitter taste of coffee. I even drink it black! Black! I feel like I should be rewarded for this, not punished!
I know what you're thinking. "She's an idiot, doesn't she know that decaf coffee exists for this exact reason?" Yes, dear reader, I do in fact know this. Decaf coffee cuts the twitching eye time in about half, but I still very much feel the side effects. And, my college's coffee shop on campus doesn't even serve decaf coffee as an option, so I'm basically doomed from the start.
Before I end this, I would like to make one final plea to coffee, that dear old cup of Joe. Please don't hate me. I'm sorry I can't handle my caffeine, but I think I might die before I graduate college if you can't get over this unjust grudge you hold against me. I'm begging you, just let me enjoy you before those early morning classes where I need to stay awake! Oh dearest coffee, let me be a normal college student and drink you! I promise to work on handling my caffeine!
