That Old Black Magic
Keep calm and call me a drunk ... but only if you mean it.
Benjamin Kissell
It's been 7 days, 10 hours and 34 minutes (and a handful of change for seconds) since I last had a glass.
A full week since a single cup brimming with the wonderful, life-giving and -sustaining liquid push itself past my lips. It's been over a week since I was able to look someone directly in the face and smile clear past my red-rimmed [okay, so I've been debating adding kohl or guy-liner to them to help diminish the red, I mean ... I'm not a monster, dammit] eyes and speak to them without the urge to wring their neck for DARING TO HAVE A SERVING OF THAT WHICH I AM CURRENTLY FORBIDDEN.
It's been a full week since I began living off of a cocktail of Alka-Seltzer cold fizzes, Tylenol PM, Sudafed and enough anti-histamines to possibly tranquilize Anna Nicole Smith [*cricket chirp* ... What? Too soon?]. In the intervening time I've been running myself ragged at work - between my double-duty as de-facto AGM and Front Desk I'm known to clock 10 hours at a sitting - much to my loving fiance's [I know, right? Long story for another article; suffice it to say, he makes me so very happy and I can hardly wait for our wedding] chagrin. Since I'm not sallaried, this at least amounts to some usually pretty decent overtime in my paychecks.
A solid week of a stuffy nose so clogged I wonder if I'm going to need a Brooklyn Sanitation Worker to come unclog them. Coughing so strong I could probably hack up a cabbie or at least his horse. Congestion so strong it's moonlighting as He-Man and so many light-headed spells in which I feel my brain is not only light enought that it could float up to the second-floor landing, but it would hover and do an Ewok victory dance as it did so. Enough congested and mucus-laden tongue moments where I genuinely contemplate visiting my Nana so I can chew on the naugahyde uphostery monster that is her old sofa in the basement den in hopes of actually tasting something ... even if I'm sure that taste is guilt-swilled-shame.
Ooh, goodie - I can't tell if I opened my medicine cabinet or
a box of Mike and Ikes spilled into a tub of Skittles and Tic-Tacs.
I'll share the licorice ones with you.
Why am I going a on and on complaining about all these things? I know I'm hardly the first - nor perhaps even the most important - person who's ever suffered seasonal allergies and sinuses. No, I am lamenting these things because they have come between me and the other One True Love Of My Life [you know, aside from the afore-mentioned fiance]. A tall, full glass off ...
... Coffee.
What, did you think I had a drinking problem?
I've extolled my love of coffee before, in previous articles, and honestly it's probably the only thing that allows me to pretend at being a nice, mildly-perky [Okay, sometimes I try so hard I'm so perky/annoying I make myself cringe and if I were talking to me I'd have the urge to slap me so hard my teeth rattled] and anything basically resembling "polite" when in the workplace. Because I? By nature? Am not so nice.
I'm actually kind of a bitch.
Or a bastard. But a few chugs of my bitter, bitter black coffee and it pulls the old switcheroo and the next thing you know ... that old black magic has me smiling, being personable and downright hospitable to random strangers. Friendly Benjamin. Personable Benjamin. Non-Stabby Benjamin. Someone sometimes so unrecognizable friends and family have had to do a double-take to reassure themselves that yes, it is me.
So, this week at work without coffee has been ... interesting. I've snapped at no-less-than four employees of mine and accidentally [?] made a malcontent non-bill-paying guest cry. Twice! Which of course meant that the minute I walked into work tonight there is a full busload of 18-19 year olds on two floors, a complement of their alcohol-riddled "chaperones" in my lobby and absolutely nowhere to park as the giant asshat Harley Davidson truck occupied even THE NO PARKING FIRE LANE when I spent 20 minutes trying to find parking ... *cough* ahem ... anywho. Suffice it to say tonight? The first thing I did after grabbing my paperwork and setting things right was to ignore the very large warning of "do not mix with coffee". And I poured myself the largest, blackest double-mug of bitter, bitter black coffee I could.
Here's hoping those warnings are wrong. And if they're not? That at least the results will be entertaining as fuck. I could use fodder for more new articles.
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