A Schedule and a Cuppa Joe

When I was younger, and would admonish my parents for drinking a yucky thing like coffee, my father would say "You'll start drinking coffee when you go to college." But I didn't. I didn't even start drinking Mountain Dew or Coke or anything. No Vivarin or No-Doz. Not the first time I went to college, and not the second time I went to college.

Perhaps the third time is the charm.

First, let me say, I still hate coffee. But I'm trying to like it. I'm really giving it my all. On Monday I decided to schedule every minute of my every day in order to see if I could fit in a lot of things I've been neglecting.
This is 6:30am until 10:30pm. The rest of the time is sleep.At this point I can either take up a caffeine addiction, a nicotine addiction, or an alcohol addiction, and I think a caffeine addiction sounds the best, since it doesn't lead to anything illegal, it's socially acceptable, it's not overtly self-destructive, and it's frequently free. However, I think it's a long way before I can appreciate the kind of coffee that's free.

I started by buying a small bag of ground coffee in a fun flavor, French Caramel Cream. Doesn't that sound lovely? I also purchased some cream; it seems that a lot of people need cream to choke down their coffee. It certainly makes it look more appealing. I brewed myself a few cups using the Jr. Mr. Coffee I got from a friend who was moving, and it didn't sell at her garage sale; I was doing her a favor taking it off her hands (and it's come in handy when The Folks come to visit; we don't have to go out for breakfast as long as I can give them some coffee). I added what I considered to be an excessive amount of cream and a few spoonfuls of sugar, and it was still yucky. Bitter. Gross. Where's the "french caramel"? I considered that perhaps the "french" referred to the roast, but further investigation at the grocery store proved me wrong; this was indeed the mildest roast available. Boo.

So I considered the advice of my knitty friend, Donna. She said she had to start with those instant International Coffees, and work her way up. So I visited the coffee aisle again, a few feet down from where I was before, and above the International Coffees was this:

I chose "Caramel Groove".

I love caramel, it has a lot of sugar in it, it was on sale; let's give it a go.

By Thursday, I'm rip-my-hair-out-screaming tired (see above schedule); today is Thursday, hence, I'm on my third cup. I don't know how effective it's been, and the first few sips are still pretty yucky. It's got 100 calories a cup, but it smells nice, and the nastiness is outpowered by the yumminess just enough that I can drink it.

It's nowhere near real coffee, but at least it's Folgers. My parents have been drinking Folgers for over 35 years, by my best estimation. They cut back sometime in the 90's I think, and I'm not sure Folgers has ever recovered from the drop in sales.

Dad will be so proud.

(My parents have started reading my blog...Hi Mom! Hi Dad! [waving])