I’m not a coffee addict, am I?
Nothing smells better in the morning than a fresh cup of coffee in the kitchen. The Gracious Mistress of the parsonage has set it up so that at a certain time in the morning, the coffee starts brewing and we wake up to that wonderful aroma.
I love my coffee in the morning and nothing gets me on my way better.
I had a little glitch last week. I had to go in for my annual blood work. If you’ve ever had blood drawn, you know not to eat or drink anything after midnight so they can take the correct blood sample. Even Count Dracula wasn’t that picky!
I didn’t think about it until I woke up that morning, the coffee was brewing, the aroma filled the house, and I was ready for my first cup of coffee of the day. So my wife looked at me and said, “Don’t you have a blood test this morning?”
My heart sank to the bottom of my feet. How can I start the day without my morning cup of Joe?
When I went to the doctor’s office that morning, I told the nurse, “You are the bravest person I know.”
She looked at me quite curiously and I explained. “Not having my morning coffee makes me an angry curmudgeon.” And I meant it.
She laughed and said, “That may be true, but I’ve got the needle that I’m going to stick in your arm.” With that, she laughed, but I didn’t return the joy.
Leaving the doctor’s office, I went straight to McDonald’s for a cup of coffee. How I got there, I will never know. After several sips of coffee, it seemed to calm me down and make me a pretty decent person. Or so I think.
I’m not quite sure where I learned to love coffee so much. Growing up, my parents drank coffee, but it was that terrible instant coffee. How anyone can drink that is beyond me. For a long time I thought that’s what coffee tasted like and I wanted nothing to do with it.
I clearly remember the first time I had a real cup of coffee.
I was helping my grandfather with some yard work and about mid-morning he looked at me and said, “Son, how old are you?”
I thought it was silly for my grandfather to ask, but I replied with a cheerful “I’m 14 years old, Grandpa.”
“That’s good,” he told me smiling, “you’re old enough for a real coffee, let’s go inside.”
That’s when I got to know real coffee. To this day, I’m not quite sure how he did it, but I know he put a lot of energy into his coffee. It was coffee brewed on an old-fashioned wood stove in the kitchen.
So my love for coffee I owe to my grandfather who knew how to make real coffee and not that artificial instant coffee my parents made.
Since then, I have been enjoying coffee and perhaps, as my wife says, enjoying it too much.
Not long ago, in the middle of the morning, he looked at me over a cup of coffee and asked me a strange question. “How much coffee have you had today?”
For the life of me, I’m not sure why you asked that question, because no one can have too much coffee.
Not knowing how to respond, I said very carefully, “This is the only cup of coffee I can remember having today.”
I find it wonderful to grow old when you can blame everything on old age and forgetfulness.
“I’m not so sure,” she said hesitantly, “this is the third cup of coffee I’ve made today.”
After all, who counts how much coffee they drink. One cup is as good as another cup. I’m not the type of person to discriminate over anything, especially coffee. Of course, if it’s instant coffee, then I’ll discriminate.
“I think,” she said seriously, “that you are addicted to coffee.”
That surprised me quite a bit because I had never heard that word before. I’m something of a wordsmith and enjoy words and phrases, but this word, Coffeeholic, I’ve never heard before. At first, I thought maybe he was making it up. After a little research, there is such a word.
She wasn’t done with her little coffee talk: “I think you’re drinking too much coffee and you should consider cutting it down a bit. Caffeine isn’t good for you.”
I’m not sure where all that came from, but I’ll “think” about what you just said. I don’t plan on doing anything about it, because I think she wouldn’t want to be around someone like me who hasn’t had her coffee of her day.
I have so many other things to think about, as the apostle Paul said: “Furthermore, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is lovely, whatever is who is of good name; if there is any virtue, and if any praise, think about this” (Philippians 4:8).
This is what I’m going to be thinking about, but not reducing my coffee.
