Off the Wagon

The sexiest molecule on the planet

After three-plus years of clean living, I finally caved. I couldn't take it anymore...the peer pressure was too great. Everywhere I go, people are social drinking, and I want to fit in. Especially now that I'm here in Sri Lanka, it seems like there's just this incessant need to tempt me. I'm sorry, I snapped...

I'm back on caffeine.

There's only so many times you can say no to "the best tea in the world." I walk down the street and they're offering it to me in every shop window, on every corner. "Hey man, we got the hook up - you like orange pekoe fannings? Got em bro." During last week's trip to up-country near the famous tea estates around Nuwara Eliya, I took a visit to the Labookellie Tea Factory and figured since I was at the source, I might as well dip a cup into the well.

Holy hell you guys. Have you ever not had caffeine for three years and then had the tea equivalent of crack rock cocaine? I swear to you I was seeing triple. Time slowed down. Things...things made sense.

Those of you who know me might at this point ask, "Hey Eric, why of all the myriad bad habits you kept up with over the years did you ditch entirely the relatively innocuous caffeinated beverage?" First of all, shut up, I don't have that many bad habits. Second of all, it wasn't by choice. Much like my lactose intolerance and my crippling fear of clowns, caffeine found a way to make my stomach do jumping jacks. Somehow, magically though, I appear to be able to drink Ceylon tea without any negative side effects!

Well, aside from the ridiculous caffeine binge I've been on for the last three days. Do you know what my dreams have been like lately? Me neither, cause I haven't closed my eyes in 67 hours. And work productivity has shifted from a standardized clip to a stop-and-go flurry of ONoffONoffONoffONoff. The plan was to reintroduce caffeine slowly back into my life, but since they didn't teach pacing oneself at college I never learned that skill. Oh well, I guess we'll go with immersion therapy until I get the hang of this thing.