Drug of choice

As anyone who has read any posts on this blog would know, I gave up coffee April First. It has not been easy, but my friends at CA have really helped. I do have issues with Coffee Anonymous though, and not just because the meeting room in the basement of the church is next to Cats Anonymous, so everyone calls our rooms CaCa. No, that would actually be the least of my issues.

Larry McGuire (real name) is a member. I learned his last name by accident, but now when I see him I say Hi Larry McGuire and his face turns white, as if I just told him that the CaCa rooms were still locked.

See the thing about CA is that we are not supposed to know one anothers real world identities. When he does want to speak out about his terrible-terrible addiction to coffee he always starts his rant with, "Hi everyone, my name is Larry." See, that was his first mistake. One of the things I learned while living in California and attending BA meeting, Buddhist Anonymous, was that you should never use any real anything. Sometimes I would complain about my tuba playing elephant and everyone would be concerned about both my safety and the elephants happiness, which was indicative of the kind souls at BA.

CA is a completely different story. Coffee drinkers are a dangerous group. Seriously, check this statistic out from the "So you want to stop ruining your life with caffeine" booklet. Real quote, "97 percent of all serial killers drink coffee. The same percentage, 98 percent, is the number of congress members who also drink coffee, you do the math."

See? That is evidence right there. Strong evidence. Which is why I joined CA, that and that fucking tuba playing elephant has been dipping into my coffee stash, but that is neither here nor there. The truth about coffee is that it is a drug, a legal drug, just like alcohol, tobacco, cocaine and heroin. One of the things I have already learned from CA is that I am powerless to my addiction, except when I'm not.

Larry McGuire is totally powerless to his addiction. I know this because while he was in the caca room making poo, I rifled through his car. First thing I learned, his real name is Larry McGuire. That made me laugh. Then I noticed the hot cup of coffee in his cup holder, that made me sad and then I noticed he had a copy of Serial Killers Digest under the front seat. Weird, right?

Anyway, I walked down to the CaCa rooms and Larry came up to me and said "Marta, you ever wonder why they have coffee right out here in from of the CA room? That doesn't seem right."

I should explain, while some of the gullible addicts, like Larry, use their real names when testifying to the audience of strung out coffee heads, I made the choice not to. At first I just sat in the back of the CA room, quietly listening to the sad-sad tales of how the evil bean ruined their lives. There were countless stories of desperation, like one from "Paul", aka, Paul, who one day went into great detail about the time he had to drink McDonalds Coffee because he needed his fix and all the quality coffee shops were over 3 blocks away. We were all equally sympathetic and I think a little shocked, because really, I had never in my life met someone who had actually tasted the so called coffee they brew at McDonalds.

After weeks of attending meetings and sitting in the back, one day I knew I was ready. I walked up to the front of the room, everyones eyes wildly staring at me, like the caffeine fueled junkies I knew them to be, and I spoke. "Hello, my name is Marta, the car is in the garage." Then I walked back to my chair, sat down and waited. The room was quiet for a second, but soon a jumbled little skinny woman named, fuck if I know her name and damned if she was actually named Becky, so let's say her name was Captain Flapjack, stood up and walked to the podium.

Captain Flapjack walked to the front of the room, did the requisite hello my name is Captain Flapjack thing and started rambling about how she started drinking caffeine at age 11, hard core. Captain Flapjack was the sort of addict you would never think about being an addict, or really for any other reason. She was plain as day, kind of attractive in the inbred Alabama tattoo is for real sort of way. She had her charms, she would bring donuts and coffee to the CA meetings, that I really liked about her, but all in all, most of her addict stories were boring. "Hello my name is Captain Flapjacks and once I was so high on coffee, I met a guy, took him back to my hotel room and made love to him. After, I was still all high, so I asked if he wanted to go get some coffee, but he looked at me like an addict and gave me 50 bucks. He said I reeked of coffee, cigarettes and tobacco, which I thought was weird, because where I come from, tobacco is made of cigarettes."

A couple of days later I was waiting for the doors to the CaCa rooms to get unlocked and Larry McGuire saddled up to me. Hey Marta, he said, "how the hell are you?"

If there is one lesson I have learned in life, and even one lesson would be a welcome improvement at this point, it is this, people who saddle up to you are not to be treated with kid gloves, which was a good thing, because that particular day I had left my kid gloves at home. Plus who asks how the hell are you? There is just so much wrong with that question. I looked at Larry McGuire and said, "the car is in the garage."

Larry; Yeah, I got that.

Me; The car.

Larry; I was wondering how you are doing.

Me; Marta, the car is in the garage.

Larry; I know giving up the juice can be hard, so I wanted you to know, I am here for you. I'd say I was there for you, but I don't know where there is.

Me; The garage.

Larry; Well, I guess it could be. I like you Marta.

Me; Marta, the car is in the garage.

Larry; That's a good thing, yeah, I agree. Listen, you ever party? I got some T, a little K and some fresh Meth if you want to partake.

Me; The garage.

Larry; Hell yeah, we can party in the garage. Shit, you want to, we can party in your car, parked in the garage, right?

Me; Marta, the car is in the garage.

Larry; Well, Marta, you just let me know.

A few minutes later I saddled up in front of the crowd at CA, everyone sat somewhat still, their brown teeth smiling at me as a way to show warmth and acceptance. I walked up, set down my to-go cup of vodka and looked out at everyones eager faces and said, "Marta, the car is in the garage." I grabbed my cup, took a swig of the vodka, started to walk back to my chair and Larry stood up and said "we should be proud of Marta, 2 weeks clean and sober." I took another drink of vodka, Larry pulled out a pipe and lit up some substance, inhaling deeply, the fat guy in the front of the room started to inject something into his arm and the woman sitting next to him reached into her purse and pulled out a small delicate little kitten, she stood and said, "this is totally not Cats Anonymous, is it?" and left.