How Do I Love Coffee? Let Me Count the Ways!

I've noted before that the traditional list of the corporal works of mercy -- feed the poor; clothe the naked -- lacks just one item. That would be caffeinating the Dolins.

Tongue is just barely in cheek.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon panhandling throughout our near environs in dire need of half and half. Most of the panhandling was of the virtual variety -- i.e. desperate texts shot to a variety of coffee-drinking friends. Do you have a little half and half for an under -caffeinated friend? Do you have half and half I could scavenge?

Kolbe, bless his dear heart, I sent in person across the street to hit up my friend Sue. Moments later the phone rang.

"Mom," Kolbe began, "Aunt Sue wants to know if powdered creamer or milk will work."

I tried to explain to Kolbe how to politely decline. Thank you so much. My mother is just over-the-top picky. I fumbled for the right words because, hello!, under-caffeinated because, hello, again!, no half and half. Vocabulary is just out of reach, syntax won't jibe, subjects and verbs won't agree, every noun morphs into the word "thing".

Yep.

Apparently, Aunt Sue heard my end of the conversation and got the drift. I was after half and half and could brook no substitutes. Meanwhile Sarah responded to my text. Only powdered creamer and whole milk, she replied. I am a bad combination of desperate yet picky, I responded.

Powdered creamer and milk? A vast and nefarious conspiracy, oh, yes, it was. I felt a nervous twitch coming on.

I don't do cream wanna be.

Coffee-mate? Cremora? The vast array of wretched, wretched brews concocted in the kitchens of International Delight? Well, delight is not the word that comes to my mind. Interested in the most egregious breaches of coffee creamer decency? Please click here for a telling expose.

White Chocolate Macadamia.

Almond Joy.

Cinnabon and I'm not even making that up.

Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint. Clearly a sin against both coffee and cookies. A veritable war crime, that one.

Red Velvet Cupcake? Head bang.

I can't go on.

It's wrong, I tell you, it's just plain wrong.

Now, any reasonable person who has stuck with this drivel this far surely must be pondering a simple question: Why didn't you just go to the store?

In my defense, I had gone to the store, and said store was fresh out of half and half. Now, my gut instinct tells me they probably had shelves full of that International Non-delight. I returned home empty handed and a tad worried. And I didn't immediately go out again because John was sick.

Motherhood brings oh! so many transitions. Two such transitions are significant but get little
press: the day early on when you realize leaving the house for any purpose is a multi-step and unbelievably time consuming endeavor and the day you realize it's not. I've been in the "not" camp for some time now. I can dash to the post office, zip to the gas station, head to Kroger for half and half (or a whole basket of groceries). These days I'm caught off guard when I can't leave (or shouldn't leave). And so it's been for a few days. John was sick, sick, sick over the weekend. Raging 104 degree fever, vomiting. And you don't leave, not even for half and half.

John's fever subsided. The vomiting ceased (thank you, good and merciful Lord). I headed to Kroger, procured my half and half, and sat down to a tasty brew.

Aaaaaaaah!, I texted Sarah. (Actually, the text read Hf and half . . . aaaaaaah! because, hello!, can't spell while under-caffeinated).

John is better, Two quarts of half and half sit in my fridge. And all is right with the world.