The Caffeinated Coffee Craze

I lay wide awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling in the darkness and wondering why I had thought that it would be a good idea to drink that double espresso. There was only one reason, really. The guy who sold it to me was extremely cute. So now, five hours later, I was still buzzed and not only that, there was an important test the next day which really would require that I get some sleep so that I could concentrate. But it would seem that for my body, drinking caffeine and sleeping are mutually exclusive activities.

Now, I have dozens of friends who can drink two shots of caffeine in one sitting and remain totally unaffected. It takes far more than just two shots to wake them up. In fact, it seems that quite a few of my classmates rely on caffeine in various high dosages to do their work. These, of course, are the students who can be seen at any hour of the day nursing a Venti mocha, and whose waking hours outside of school are spent studying at Starbucks. They can list off every drink Starbucks is selling at any given point in time, including the price and the Calories. They provide a valuable resource; not only that, they know all the Starbucks employees by name at the locations that they frequent. Choosing a Starbucks location is a complex decision, of course, taking into account many factors: how long it stays open, whether the other customers are cute/friendly/creepy/etc, whether the employees are cute/friendly/creepy/etc, whether it’s in a “happening” part of town or next door to an old folk’s home. In other words, factors that matter to teenaged girls.

So I was thinking about this caffeine culture at my school when I ordered the espresso. The fateful question, “D’ya want a double or single?” came at a moment of weakness, when I had a paper to finish and needed some energy to do it. I thought to myself, “I may not be a Starbucks connoisseur, I may not yet be familiar with the intricate ways of caffeine, but if it works for so many of my classmates, why shouldn’t I give it a try? If my friends do work on five shots or more, why can’t I?” So in the split second of decision when the cute barista asked me whether I wanted a single or a double, those were the thoughts that flashed across my mind. After only a moment’s hesitation, I said, “I’ll take a double” and tried to sound as though those were words that often rolled off my tongue. Specifically, “I’m cool, and drink caffeine to stay awake. I don’t need adrenaline or other normal body chemicals. I’m too bohemian for all that.”

Well, I have yet to adjust to that bohemian lifestyle of caffeine dependence that I had in mind. Unfortunately, I don’t trust myself to ever have caffeine again except in small, controlled quantities, since apparently it gives me such a buzz. I didn’t fall asleep till well after two in the morning that night, and the next morning I was still out of it because I was running solely on adrenaline. Yet I can’t help but admire the Starbucks culture at my school; when someone says, “I stayed up till three last night doing work, so I had to get four shots in my coffee this morning,” I kind of just want to hug them and say, “You, my caffeinated friend, are my hero. I aspire to be like you.” And, though I would never, ever allow myself to drink something that heavily caffeinated, I mean what I say. I aspire to be that person who can hold their caffeine, and hold it well.