What'e'er good cometh of far too much coffee, 'tis far outweighed by the cost...

Ne'er have I seen the dangers so clear of the legality, and more importantly, the abundance of caffeine in this country. When a restaurant will sell an endless cup of coffee to someone at 4 a.m., and then bring them a second pot once they have foolishly consumed the first, well, perchance I think too harshly of them, and 'tis the fault of the consumer, not the business.

All right, so I know this is summer vacation and all, but let me note one thing. My days off work are just that. Days off. Not nights stretching into infinity. I do not wish to be kept up until 4 a.m. by the sinister machinations of my friends, nor torn from the security of my own home by the same in an attempt to make me go to WinCo with them. This manner of treachery is only acceptable when leavened with delicious food.

So it was that this befell me. A couple of my housemates drag me out of the house at 4 a.m., ostensibly to go grocery shopping. Now, I'd already been grocery shopping. That very day, in fact, and gotten ingredients to make delicious food for the house. But no, they were not content with this, and off we went. We did not make it to WinCo, as I foolishly mentioned I was hungry, and lamented that even McDonald's wasn't open so late. Or perhaps not open quite that early.

So off we went to the local Shari's, which if you don't know what that is, is kind of like a Denny's. It's a 24-hour diner. Stephen, this adorable no good dirty rotten scoundrel friend of mine, bought me very early breakfast. Stuffed hashbrowns, sausages, eggs and toast, the works. But my mistake was the coffee.

See, another friend who happens to live in our house is allergic to coffee. So much so that we can't even brew any in the house, or the fumes get to her and drive her sinuses nuts and kick her in the head. So when I get the opportunity to have some coffee, I sure as chocolate pudding take some. Yes, that epithet was strange, but it's 2:30 a.m. Cut me some slack.

I drank two pots of coffee all by myself. I'm not sure where the first pot went, but I more or less inhaled it before my food got to me. Also, I consumed enough cream and sugar to power a small European country. Coffee, as it turns out, requires a certain ratio of sugar to cream to coffee for me to tolerate it. And of course, I usually use coffee as an excuse to drink cream and sugar. So with the ratio of four sugar packets and three creamers to one cup of coffee, and an average of four cups of coffee per pot... my goodness, that is a stupid number of sugar packets. Nevermind.

This of course affected my behavior somewhat. I am mildly hyperactive in my normal state of consciousness, and the addition of two pots of coffee to this is not the best of soothing balms. Somewhere between the first and second pot, everything in the world became hilarious. My friends and I chatted about random stuff for an hour while we ate and I drank gratuitous amounts of coffee. And cream and sugar. It makes Stephen sick to watch me doctor my tea, as he's lactose intolerant.

For the record, if you ever go to the Shari's in Moscow, Idaho at night, and you are served by a waitress named Krystal, she is a fantastic person, a paragon of professionalism, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for putting up with my shenanigans.

THE POINT OF THIS STORY IS

It actually doesn't have one, but it produced an interesting side effect. For the next two hours after getting home (6 a.m. to 8 a.m. Thursday morning), I wrote two thousand words per hour. After the caffeine wore off and I crashed for four hours, I got up and wrote even more. Seven thousand, one hundred and fifty-four words are the direct result of two pots of coffee. I'm not sure of the quality, but the quantity is stupendous.

Therefore I am going to bed now to catch up on my much-needed sleep. But I'm on a roll now, folks. With just less than three thousand words to write, give or take, and the story winding up to a conclusion of sorts, I am so very very close to being done it's not even funny. If I wasn't falling asleep at the keyboard, I'd just finish it now. But I have work in the morning, bwaaaaah. Off to clean sheets and fuzzy blankets for the night. Hopefully tomorrow, the book will be done. No promises.

Oh, and by the way, Duncan, thanks for being my first follower. You are the Best. Stalker. Ever.

Thought for the Day: Contemplating the fall of the Bolsheviks, I realize that it really doesn't take much to topple a governmental system and become an evil dictator. Next time you see a ruling regime on the brink of collapse from their own stupidity, would you do me a favor and tell me so I can take it over?