Tuesday 3 May 2011

Dream Thievery and Good Coffee

The Vernacular Curate is now back to normal service levels. Hold on to your hat, your hair and your extremities.

Many of you, like me, are barely alive until the fourth or fifth litre of coffee has landed mouth-side. To be honest, I can't even aspire to the vertical until after the third full mug. I would have an intravenous drip fitted, but it would mean re-working the cuffs on my cassock, and that just won't do. 

Despite my very youthful age (have I ever mentioned that I am rather young), I can still remember a world without the Golden-Arch Corporation. Yes, kids, I can still see a picture of a McDonald's free world where fast food was offered simply by Wimpy on beige plates. Life was good, simple, and sepia back then. Then Ronald McDonald exploded over the entire world and we now all eat too fast out of paper and polystyrene. But then something else happened, after that.

Almost by stealth, in the dark of a November night, every former Spar shop (or Londis if you are from that part of the world) turned into the nut-grinding empire of a highly trained and eminently skilled barista. Everywhere you turn, you will see a coffee-shop. Try going out of doors to buy a darning mushroom or a fish-knife these days, and you will surely fail. Need a sewing machine or a cravat? Pah. Not a chance, mate. For ye shall rejoice with coffee, my friend. In fact, so bad has this become, that I toddle back into a Macky-Dees just for a little nostalgia, a view of life in the halogen days of yore. 

But, dear readers, there is a price. This socio-caffeinated development has an insidious side, oh yes it does. You want aluminium-table java emporia? There is a price to pay. 

Last week, I noticed how much more I had been dreaming in my sleep (as distinct from during my awakedness, for they are different dreams). Every night, I had had nice fluffy dreams that I could remember in the morning. It was like being alive again, not just a blinded hitchhiker through the dark of night in my flabby body. Then I discovered the awful truth. The wife, none other than the fragrant Mrs Acular, had replaced our normal ground coffee with (and I can barely type it without falling into spasm) decaffeinated ground coffee. N'ere a drop of life-giver passed my lips for a whole stinking week, for I had been unwittingly detoxificated.

I can disclose, therefore, that full-fat full power coffee robs you of your dreams. You heard it here first. 

5 comments:

  1. Mind you don't get the cracking post withdrawl headache when you stop drinking the full fat stuff. took me weeks to work out why I had such a bad headache

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  2. Glad to see you are back, and in full form!

    I myself do not drink coffee (gasp!) but instead feast upon an iced Diet Dr. Pepper in the a.m. There, I've said it.

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  3. Decaffeinated. Decaffeinated! How dare you utter such a profanity, and you a priest too.

    While I don't doubt the health benfits of said noxious fluid, water would be just as good.

    Any time you need a fix, you know where to come!

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  4. LOL, David. I find it interesting that you didn't actually exprerience any other withdrawal symptoms. Did you keep falling asleep or were you as wide-awake as usual by the sheer power of auto-suggestion? Good for Mrs Acular - too much caffeine is NOT a good thing...

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  5. I had to stop drinking coffee a few years ago. My intake had increased to addictive levels and I was becoming a real fidgit until I had my next fix.

    After a conversation with a Quack, he advised me that is was the caffeine in the coffee which was making me twitch.

    I am now an ardent tea drinker and feel very virtuous due to it. But lingering craving for coffee still hangs on.

    I can also confirm that since giving it up, I have had some fluffy dreams. Reverse psychology or what?

    ReplyDelete

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