This column originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune June 26, 2018
Coffee and I fall in love, and break up, more than The Bachelor contestants.
Each time I vow to flee forever from sweet-smelling, teeth-staining, breath-worsening joe, something pulls me back in. These separations have lasted for durations ranging from two weeks to five years. I’m currently six months without caffeine, but a recent study by German researchers concluded those six months may have negatively affected my cells. So, here I go again. Off to Starbucks.
I first tasted coffee during final exam week my freshman year at Northwestern University. Hopelessly behind on my biology notes, and nodding off in my library study carrel, I sauntered to the vending machines, deposited a quarter and pressed “black.” Shunning cream, sugar and other additives in your first cup of coffee is a bit like skipping a first puff on a cigarette, opting instead for a Cuban cigar.
The coffee did its job, reviving me enough so I could navigate the difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. I figured I had found the solution to my precariously wobbling grade point average.
But…
By sophomore year, my grades were faltering. Furthermore, late night coffee injections were, surprise, depriving me of sleep. I laid off the coffee for the remainder of my college years, managing to graduate with a journalism degree and even landing a newspaper job in South Florida.
But…
Newspaper reporters drink coffee. Lots of it. You know who else drinks coffee? Police officers. Lots of it. So when my editor assigned me the police beat, coffee became my gateway to cultivating sources and obtaining information. For hours, I’d banter with uniformed patrol officers and plainclothes detectives before casually asking, “So, any closer to catching the Palm Beach Pearl Pilferer?” or whatever name cops had given to the current menace terrorizing rich, retired folks. Even in 1985, Florida led the nation in bizarre crimes and criminals.
But…
Eventually I found my newsroom co-workers avoiding me. I’d return from the precincts thoroughly amped on caffeine and irritable to anyone who dared cross my path. I snapped at the food columnist, openly challenged copy editors and, on more than one occasion, engaged in profane conversations within earshot of school field trips exploring the glorious world of journalism. I went cold turkey again, spending less time with the boys in blue and, probably, failing to land an exclusive when the Early Bird Bandit was finally apprehended outside a Pompano Denny’s. I switched careers shortly thereafter, becoming a full-time stand-up comedian.
But…
One night, before performing to a sparse crowd at a Chicago-area club, I gulped a cup of coffee about 10 minutes before taking the stage. What followed was 45 minutes of, in comedian terms, “killing it.” I improvised new bits, riffed with audience members, and even remembered their names and occupations half an hour after I’d inquired from the stage. While other comedians I knew struggled with more potent, and sometimes illegal, drugs, I had found my “funny pill.” My performance rider eventually included the sentence, “Artist requests, backstage, one pot of black coffee.” It was a simple appeal, unlike “one bowl of M&Ms with the green ones removed.”
But…
As I aged, another side effect of coffee, frequent urination, made my live performances anything but funny, at least internally. Rather than change my rider to read: “Artist requires, within 50 feet of stage, one port-a-potty,” I shunned coffee again.
But…
I’ll gladly contract my bladder if it means better heart health. Which is what those German researchers say will happen if I drink FOUR cups of caffeinated coffee a day. The study concluded caffeine helps strengthen cells lining the heart, reducing the risk of heart attacks as one ages.
So I’m back on the caffeine, although I have yet to consume four cups in a 24-hour span. As I write this column, I have completed two and the jitters are already setting in.
I hope I don’t encounter any school field trips today.
