Codename: CoffeeBoob

I officially have a problem, and it is called Gimme! Coffee.

Gimme! Coffee is what I would like to consider my local coffee shop. It is located a mere four-ish blocks from my house, serves up the most insanely good, strong coffee and espresso drinks I've encountered, and is never not teeming with hot, tatted-up rocker boys. Why just last week I encountered not one but TWO of my recent crushes ordering themselves up some iced Americano's (the preferred coffee beverage of hot dudes everywhere).

As an aside, I'd like to point out that it's not always ideal to run into your crushes at the coffee joint, because you are usually in one of two extreme states of being. By you I mean me. Either I am comatose and sub-lingual with squinty eyes that resemble those of a newborn baby rodent or I am on my second cuppa, which likely means I'm crazed and sweating and behaving like a junkie in need of her fix.

Which brings me to this problem I mentioned above. I am addicted. ADDICTED. Yes, I am aware that caffeine is a drug. Yes, I'm aware that people become addicted to it. But when I say addicted, what I mean is . . . .

Picture it: Brooklyn, New York on a rainy misty morning in late July. Yours truly is struggling down the street carrying not one but two large cups of soy latte, both with extra shots. Because each "single" shot is a triple ristretto (um, yeah), this means that each cup I hold in my little hand contains what amounts to SIX shots of espresso. I have resorted to buying TWO LARGE COFFEE DRINKS because I NEED TO KEEP UP MY BUZZ. I am preparing to consume TWELVE SHOTS OF MUTHER FUCKING ESPRESSO.

I secretly hope that the counter people think I have, like, a friend or a boyfriend for whom I've been kind enough to brave the crap weather in the name of a cuppa joe. Because no one -- NO ONE -- in her right mind would need to consume that much coffee by herself in immediate succession, let alone insist on procuring it in the midst of a fucking thunderstorm. Certainly no one in her right mind would think it necessary to don rubber boots and trip down the street carrying two large cups of coffee whilst trying to also manage her wind-ravaged umbrella and attempting to make sure her dress doesn't fly up and flash the pizza shop across the street, all the while trying like a maniac to simultaneously sip from one cup, then another (so as to not make one cup feel inferior to the other!). And so on, down the street.

Needless to say folks, I arrived at my apartment a few minutes ago with the front half of me drenched from improper use of umbrella, and I had coffee and soy foam on my nose, chin and boob area. Junkie. I kid you not.

And here I sit, sucking down cup numero uno, already thinking about cup #2. And wondering how much time I could realistically let pass before arousing suspicion or concern amongst the baristas when I go in and order another cuppa. Perhaps I should estimate when the shift changes?

These are the crazed thoughts I'm having right now.

Well at least I'm in good company: Rumor was that Balzac drank like 80 cups of java a day. He even wrote a treatise called "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee."

Oh, and then he died of caffeine-related health problems! Whoops!