Enjoying my coffee. Sort of.

My 2nd job growing up was working at a bagel shop called "Willy's Bagels & Blends".  We sold bagels, smoothies, sandwiches, coffee & espresso drinks, coffee beans in bulk and other little goodies. I was 16 when I started working there and of course, started drinking coffee. It's funny to me that when I see teenagers walking around drinking coffee or sitting at Starbucks with their friends, I comment to myself that they are too young to be drinking coffee. I guess I thought I was pretty grown up when I was 16?

I had stopped drinking coffee during my pregnancy with Joey and the whole year after he was born while I breastfed him. Not sure why I started drinking it again, but I did. At that time, I didn't even know of Starbucks. Didn't know it existed and was satisfied with the Folders in my cup. Of course I did have to put a little bit of vanilla creamer in it to sweeten it up. I remember waking up and walking down the street to my friend April's house to  have her husband pour us each a cup of coffee so that we could sit and drink our warm delight while watching the boys play outside. I have always enjoyed my cup of coffee in the morning. I guess you could say it's an addiction. I have to have it. If I don't, I'll end up with a headache by noon. I feel content sitting in the sun, or on the couch just holding my warm cup and sipping my cup of joe.

Sometime after my divorce I stopped drinking caffeine all together. As I sit and try to remember exactly why or when I can't. I know that my grandparents had some influence over it, telling me that in the long run it would be bad for me and I should switch to decaf.

All of that went out the window when I started working graveyard shift as a 911 dispatcher. There was no way I was going to survive that without a little bit of caffeine. By then, of course I knew about Starbucks and was pretty much a regular. It's amazing to see how much you spend at that money pit when you look at your receipts over a months span. It's really sickening but can be compared to a smoker buying cigarettes I guess.

Since moving to Arizona in September 2008, I have definitely cut back on the Starbucks runs. Down to maybe 2-3 times a month, if not less. Occasionally I will even get a coffee at Dunkin Donuts. I have been buying the Dunkin Donuts coffee grounds for a couple years now and absolutely love it. It satisfies my taste for coffee, my caffeine withdrawals and most of the time it  is pretty inexpensive for a 1lb bag.

What prompted me to write about coffee this morning is that I am sitting here drinking my coffee, getting ready to work out and am almost gagging trying to drink whatever it is that I bought at Safeway last week. Dunkin Donuts coffee was not on sale and there was a breakfast blend made by Seattle's Best that was. It looked good and there were several bags of it missing from the shelf so I thought to myself, "it's just coffee, can't be bad, I'll try it" and proceeded to buy it. The second selling point that it had was that it is organic. My Dunkin Donuts coffee is definitely not organic, but if they did make an organic blend, I would buy it.

Today is Day #3 of trying to choke down this horrible cup of coffee. It's a pretty bad addiction when you have to have something so bad that you'll drink it even if it does taste like dirt. (and I mean that literally, it tastes like someone put dirt in my coffee pot and poured hot water through it). I continue to drink. Maybe it will grow on me? Maybe my taste buds are just getting used to it? No. It's a horrible tasting coffee and I really hope that I'm not the only one who thinks so. I can't even describe how bad it is.

I will finish this cup, work out and then be off to the grocery to buy my beloved Dunkin Donuts "Dunkin Dark" blend.  This other stuff, however, is going in the garbage.