On My Caffeine Consumption

One day, I know, the amount of Diet Coke I drink will catch up to me.

It’s inevitable.

I drink six to eight liters of the stuff a day, after all, it’s a wave of nonstop caffeine I surf to make up for the fact that I can’t get a proper night’s sleep due to the amount of caffeine I ingest. It’s not normal, it’s profoundly unhealthy, and there are bound to be consequences.

I am aware of all of this, acutely so, yet I persist with my unhealthy habit. I do this consciously, making the informed decision, even knowing as I do that it will come back some day to haunt me, to follow the path I have placed myself upon.

It is who I am. It is what I am. I know that it is wrong, and yet I continue.

I have thought it out, fully, you can trust me on that. And I drink this much diet coke anyway.

So you may know, beyond doubt, that your protestations of the side effects of what I’ve chosen to do to myself, your helpful advice and suggestions regarding what might be best for me, will fall upon deaf ears.

I know it’s wrong, I do it anyway, it hurts no one but me, so try not to worry to excess.

Yes, I have heard that aspartame causes brain tumors. No, this hasn’t deterred me in any way.

In the event that I develop a tumor upon my frontal lobe, I have learned from popular culture, this tumor will in the months I have left to live provide me the ability to either see the future or read the minds of the people around me. I will use this ability, for however long I have left, to fight crime, constantly at odds with a female detective that I’m constantly one step ahead of, and with whom I share a fascinating “Will they/Won’t they” sexual tension.

Don’t get me wrong, she will be much more than simple eye candy for the fans. The good detective will, indeed, be a very good detective, and on more than one occasion will her training and keen analytical mind uncover clues that I, even with my ability to read minds and see the future, would have missed. Ours will be a partnership, in the truest sense, in spite of our oft strained professional relationship.

Because she, you see, will not believe in the paranormal, and will believe me a charlatan in spite of the proof I weekly put in front of her of the results my unorthodox methods achieve.

It will run on Fox, for a season and a half, and when it is abruptly cancelled midway through a season arc that will later win multiple Emmy’s, the fan reaction via internet will be explosive, passionate and furious…

Does this seem unlikely? Unbelievable? The fantasy of a man in denial? Perhaps.

But I do know that the “aspartame causes brain tumors” meme is based on one flawed study from more than a decade ago, and for me to have the equivilent amount of aspartame as the mice the tests were performed on I would have to eat truckloads of the stuff raw, every single day.

Which I do not do.

That’s science fact, bitches.

So no, I’m not worried about the amount of Diet Coke I drink. The caffeine’s bad for me, I’d be better off if I quit, but it’s not an immanent threat. And in the meantime, I still have to quit smoking in a permanent way, that one WILL kill me, and that’s by far my higher priority.

Plus, really, don’t pretend you’d watch the show. It’d be a fun one.

Now, if I can figure out how to get Diet Coke to sponsor…

25 Years Later...

I can see the smoking doors from my bed.

As I lay here, looking out my window, I see the doors the staff use during breaks due to a fascinating piece of architectural mismanagement.

They come, rain or shine, when they have a moment to sneak a puff. During lunch there’s a crowd of them, other times it’s groups of one or two, sneaking a cigarette between the more hectic moments of their shifts.

I don’t begrudge them, they have stressful jobs after all. It’s only natural they’d occasionally need a moment to unwind and reset in the middle of their day, and there are worse ways to find one. I dealt with stress the same way, back when I smoked. And when I had a job.

And when I had so little legitimate stress in my life that the idea my job would cause me tension wasn’t laughable.

So I watch them, from my bed. I’ve always been a people watcher. I watch them sneak out the side door for a puff, in groups of two or three, huddled together in the rain or luxuriating in spring sunshine. I watch them smoke, and laugh, and comfort one another, and talk about whatever it is they talk about.

I wish I could hear them. I could use the conversation, even second hand.

But I’m no lip reader, and there’s a pane of glass and a courtyard between us, so likely as not I’ll never know what it is they’re talking about. Which is fine. I have plenty to listen to.

What I can hear is the beeping of the machine to my right, the one that monitors my vital signs, and the artificial whirr of my respirator. When my wife visits, I can hear her telling me I’m going to beat this thing, trying to convince me, and herself, that I‘ll one day be whole again, and that we‘ll go back to being a family. And, when she thinks I’ve gone to sleep, I can hear her crying to herself, softly. I hear these things perfectly well, thank you very much. For all the things that’re wrong with me my hearing works just fine.

She cries more and more often when she visits now. But she visits less and less, so I suppose one makes up for the other…

And, as she tries to comfort me, my eyes keep straying to the window, to see the courtyard, and the side door, and the people sneaking their smokes.

A year ago I’d likely have been out there with them.

In another year, someone else will be in this bed, enjoying my view.

And there’ll be new people in the courtyard, by the side door, doing all the same things. Which is fine, I mean I can’t complain about it, can I? I made my choices, I knew the risks, what kind of a man would complain about the predictable consequences life choices freely made? No, I accept the life I’ve lived, and I’ve genuinely liked a lot of it. There are things I could have done differently, but I didn’t, because it was hard and I didn’t want to. And I accept this end as part of that.

Still, staring out my window, I can’t help feeling a little put out by it.

Is it meant to be a joke?

A mean-spirited dig at my expense?

Seriously, what?

What the fuck kind of architect puts smoking doors within eyeshot of a respiratory ward, anyway?

And do the administrators not know I can see it?

Although I admit, if they don’t know, I’ll never be the one to tell them.

Because, as I’ve said, the staff have stressful jobs, and they do deserve a break to live in their own head a little while, enjoying their own bad habit, owing nothing to anyone. Even if it’s just for three minutes at a time.

And really, who am I to stop them doing something I enjoyed for close to forty years?