If My Napkin Math is Right…
…I’m Not Drinking Enough
I’ve been feeling ill lately. It’s really more than illness, a malaise of my substance, a kind of fetid bloating, rotting feeling. Wake up early, rush through quite perfunctory hygienic ministrations, and skip off to sit for eight or more hours. There are restroom breaks, but I’ve found out the hard way that the Administration frowns on its employees performing calisthenics in the stalls. The whole bit has taken a toll on me. A hefty one.
Yesterday, I’d had enough. I’d just heard of Saddam Hussein’s 17-day hunger strike. “A fast will do the trick,” said my brain to itself. “Cease excess. Relish the hunger. Kill your inner infidel.”
I started the morning with a single cup of coffee I’d brewed the night before, and thereafter let only cool water down my hatches. I ate no breakfast, no lunch, and only a handful of baby carrots as an afternoon snack. I did eat dinner, though, of the least likely food for a fasting enthusiast: pizza. Only two slices, though. I wanted more, yes; but somewhere in my soul, situated squarely between my elf parts and my martian parts, I held fast to my crude new ideology.
Night came, followed by sleep, and then daybreak, and no more sleep. No more sleep. No more sleep.
I awoke this morning with a light throbbing in my head. I felt like sleeping in, maybe calling off. “So much more time to perfect fasting.” Alas, I worked my way through a hot shower, a hasty assembly of my typical slacker wear, and got the key-in-the-ignition thing working okay. As soon as I was comfortably situated before my computer, and I started using my brain a little, the failure of my experiment presented itself triumphantly.
My eyes watered, my brain seemed to slosh ’round inside my skull like a rock, and sitting became an exertion. I could hardly marshal two thoughts into cooperation, let alone perform my monkey duties. Thinking maybe I just needed something on my stomach, I tried a PayDay, but that creamy nougat and the crunchy peanuts merely sat on my stomach. I planned to take antipain dope, but through my dim focus lost track of the plan.
I did manage, though, to grab a cup of coffee. I teased myself a little, turning indecisive circles in the hallway on the way to the break room, debating whether to get coffee or yet more water. “Both,”I decided. I held out a little, taunting that wide-brimmed cup by sipping water; but we both knew what was going to happen. Putting the water aside, I reached out and grabbed the mug. One sip. Two sips. Gulp. Gulp.
Nothing. “I must actually be sick, if coffee doesn’t help”. I waited. An hour-and-a-half later, the greasy folds of my brain settled into their places, my muscles started conducting electricity again, and the world started to look pretty nice. I put on my coffee goggles.
I finished the day with fewer cups through my system than usual, three versus six or so; and I drank considerably more water than normal. I think I’m on my way to a better balance, maybe—less food, less coffee, more water, crystal meth. Nothing but wholesome, that’s my new thing.
But that’s the last time I go 24 hours without coffee. If my napkin math is right, the caffeine molecule attaches itself to my peepee, thus creating an electromagnetic field by modulation of which I’m able to get through the day in a roughly normal fashion. Never again will I keep such a helpful molecule from attaching itself to my peepee. UPDATE: As it turns out, I’d transposed two coefficients in my Hermitian matrix, probably because I’d spilled my nog. After correcting for that mistake, it appears that caffeine molecules don’t interact with my peepee at all. It seemed reasonable, though.
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