Headbanger, anyone?

...ooooh, three days later and this girl STILL has the caffeine shakes....

Pandora Music Selection of the Day: Twisted Sister Radio!

Rituals, they say, especially at Christmas time, are important for families, serving to strengthen bonds and create that warm fuzzy feeling so important at this time of year. Lucky for this family, I have a ritual that I perform, not just during the yuletide season, but all the fun-filled year round. It goes something like this:

1. Wake up. Wish I had a coffee.
2. Lie in bed in semi-comatose state and wish someone would bring me a coffee.
3. Lie in bed and try to radiate feelings of goodwill towards someone, anyone, anywhere, who will feel my love, realize how swell I am, and bring me a coffee.
3. Lie in bed and hate everyone who ever existed in the history of this planet, especially those who are currently enjoying coffee and not bringing me any.
4. Stagger out of bed.
5. Make coffee.
6. Drink it.

On Friday, as I staggered into the kitchen for my morning ritual, I noticed that Mr. IQ 3.000 was not only awake, but hunched over the computer and looking like he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. And as it turned out, he hadn't. He had a paper due that day, and had been up all night writing it. Normally I am sympathetic towards that kind of thing, but, you know, I hadn't had my coffee yet, so I just made some grunt-like sound which, after so many years of living together he should be able to interpret as "oh honey, up all night!! That really sucks, let me bring you a nice warm caffeinated beverage and hopefully that will make you feel better!" and headed for the coffee pot. One can be sympathetic without being verbally articulate, especially at 6:30 in the morning.

I went to the kitchen counter and was generously getting together not one, but two cups of coffee when Mr. IQ 3.000 walked in and said, in a very amused, very superior tone, "you're a MIF!"

"...I'm... a...wa-haaa?"

"A MIF. A middle-class pleb who puts their Milk In First."

Now, everybody judges people for some reasons, whether they like it or not. Some people are really terrible, and judge people for ridiculous, terrible things. Others are more quirky in their judgments. The fact is, you can't leave your house without subjecting yourself to the harsh criticisms of the world. As a teenager, this knowledge is crushing, and almost kills you. By the time you reach your thirties though, you think you're over worrying about what other people think of you. However, I never, ever expected to be judged on the basis of how I prepare my stupid coffee!

"That's ridiculous," I said. "Where'd you hear about that, anyway?"

"Martin Amis," he said.

"Martin Amis??!" I whimpered. I love Martin Amis. Ever read Night Train? It's great.

"Yup."

I was crushed, but I mustered my forces. "Yeah, well, Martin Amis is a big fat snob!!" I said, (lamely.)

"Yeah, well, obviously. Duh." And with that, the conversation was over, and he left the room.

Except the conversation was not over. I kind of worried about it all day. Which explains what happened when I met my mom downtown at the library. Now my mom, bless her heart, is not a racist bigot. She is not a snob. She is not an elitist. She does, however judge people on the coffee they drink. Weak coffee drinkers are, in her eyes, a little... well, you'd have to ask her exactly what her thoughts are, but she does, I know, think a little less of them. Even for me, her first-born child and only daughter, the sole genetic transmitter of her mitochondrial DNA, she carries a certain amount of disrespect for because I add milk to my java. She believes it should be drunk hot, black and strong strong, sprout hair on your taste buds strong and any way else is just not right. I like coffee strong too, but I'm a lukewarm girl, ya know, I need some milk in there to soften the blow a bit. I DO like it strong though. That is my saving grace.

Anyway, I met her in the library and an hour or so of hanging around with old High Intensity in a place where you're supposed to be quiet left us both with a pretty desperate need for a caffeine boost. Accordingly, I set off for the coffee place nearby. (I can't believe they let people drink coffee in the big downtown library! How civilized this world is becoming!) Just as I was leaving, my mom said, with a gleam in her eye, "and make mine a 'headbanger', OK? A double shot."

"Righhhht," I said, pretending to know what she was asking for. When I got to the coffee place I scanned the board for the word "headbanger" but didn't see it, so when it was my turn to order I said, no doubt sounding like an 8-year old idiot child, "my mom? Wants a headbanger? A double shot?"

"Okee dokee," the lady said, "and when your mom is flying off the wall an hour from now, it's gonna be all your fault."

"It usually is," I said grimly, and then, because of course I had to know, added, "what the heck IS a headbanger, anyway?"

"A shot of espresso," she said, and, although I know it was just my paranoid senses working overtime, it seemed to be that she was mocking me a little. There's no way YOU could handle a headbanger, let alone a double shot you wussy MIFer you, she seemed to be saying. So of course I recklessly shot out, "um, make it TWO double shot headbangers!"

Glahhhh. Do I need to tell you what happened next? We both drank our huge, double shot espresso heroin coffee hell drinks. Our words got high pitched and erratic, our movements got shaky, and our conversation deteriorated to complaints about our palpitating hearts and sweating skin. We said good-bye and I headed home. Five hours later I still had the shakes and when That Guy returned home, I told him what had happened, and vowed I was never drinking coffee again.

"Sure," he said, "say, what's going on with the baby?"

I looked over. Her feet were pounding the pedals of an imaginary bicycle at a rate of eight thousand times a minute. She pedaled frantically 5,897,345 times in a row in a manner similar to that of a coke crazed hamster that gets into one of those wheels and runs until it dies. Then she lay on her back staring at me unhappily with glazed eyeballs the size of freaking honeydew melons, panting heavily.

Then she passed out.

Whoopsie, forgot about how that there caffeine has an inconvenient habit of wandering over to the breast milk area.

Oh guilty fever. Thy name is Mother.

P.S. No, I didn't give up coffee.