I have spoken at some length about my family.  They are truly wonderful and a source of much of my joy in life.  Adding to that are my friends who enrich my life with perspective and the occasional knock-down-drag-out conversation ending with, “I can’t believe you are really that stubborn.” [Please note that absence of an admission of error in that statement.]

Acknowledging that I am truly blessed by the rich associations that I have, I wish to move on to a thing for which I am thankful.

Caffeine.

Ah, yes, my intrepid friend who helps me battle the urge to be idle.  The magic molecule of twitch.  My thoughts are drawn to you today as I have been experiencing a bit of the down side of she for whom I am most thankful.

My wife has had bronchitis since last Wednesday.  In all seriousness, this truly sucks for her.  She can go about 30-90 minutes without having a full on, “Hey, is that my spleen?”, coughing fit that lasts anywhere from 10 seconds to a couple of minutes.  Very few things will disturb my slumber but when my wife is in pain, it wakes me right up.

In short, I haven’t been sleeping too much lately.

Forward to last night and between the jacked up sleep schedule that four days off of work with a sick wife gets you and taking the kids to school, I ended up with a little over three hours of chopped up sleep last night.  Oh, and I HAD TO GO TO WORK!

“It’s OK,” I think, “I can take the Stay Awake I keep in my desk!”

Now, for those of you playing the home game, please pay careful attention to the box.  Yes, campers, you read it right, 200mg.  In the past, when I have taken this, I have needed to push myself after a good nights rest.  Not, repeat, NOT after having just spent four days on the newborn sleep cycle concluded with a three hour romp for good measure.

Needless to say, I was, and remain, a bit loopy.

So, at approximately 1100, I downed the first tablet of twitch.  At 1130,  my arms began to tingle a bit and I could tell that it was really beginning to work when I couldn’t shut up between belching liquid inferno.

“Food!  Must have food to quench the burning!”

For those of you having trouble keeping up, caffeine and sugar are a pretty good combination because the sugar is rapidly consumed by the twitching which brings the consumer, hereafter referred to as TttTwITCH, back down as there is no more energy to consume.  Unfortunately for TttTwITCH’s coworkers, he has brought protein foods to work, ensuring a long-lasting low burn of calories so that the entire office may suffer at his hands.

LONGLIVECAFFEINE!

Not quite capable of putting these facts together, TttTwITCH decided that he was running out of juice around 1400 and had a meeting that he needed to be alert for.

Engage little-yellow-thunder the second.

It’s about ten to midnight now and I think I have managed to force two yawns since I came home at 1630.  You see, at 1630, I felt like I was going to fall asleep standing up.

At 1730, I had dinner.

At 1745, TttTwITCH was back in the house.

That my wife resisted crushing my skull tonight is a tribute to her patience.

And that’s why I love her and am thankful for her above all other blessings.

Caffeine among geeks is very highly regarded. Even those that do not or
cannot consume it understand the benefits and hazards. Being a frequent
flier of the caffeinated skies, I have a pretty good tolerance for the
stuff.

Tonight however is a tale of caffeinated hazards.

I have been having some difficulty getting good quality sleep and
thought that I would try to help myself out by going without caffeine
for awhile.

Can’t hurt, right?

Wrong.

My family went out to dinner tonight and I had 3, yes Alice, THREE Dr.
Peppers with my meal. Why? Because it was yummy. I’d been without for
awhile and was having a smashing romp with my family. At dinner, we
decided to run to Fry’s to pick up some Three Stooges videos to watch
with the kids later.

Fry’s is remarkably busy near close on Fridays. I’m talking 50 people
in line five minutes after the doors close busy.

Getting to the caffeine, I know of at least two things that evaded the
tact filter due to the caffeine:

“Hannah, that man doesn’t want you crawling in his butt.”
“Sure. I’ll do the bump with you.”

Both were said with zeal in my not so petite voice.

In response to the first, a large emo guy carrying an HP printer almost
ran his buddy over trying to get away. For the second, we were awarded
extra space front and back in line.

I love caffeine. I should remember to keep my consumption within 20mg
day to day or things apparently get dodgy. Although I can enjoy this
side effect, the general public seems unwilling to handle it well.

I mean, if a butterfly’s wings can cause a storm, five people trying to
give extra space to a jittery geek is probably going to cause global
warming to accelerate or the earth’s poles to change.

On the up side, it’s 11PM and I’m up to 4 blinks a minute!!