Caffeine suicide

An over­whelm­ing sense of self-loathing makes me want to shoot myself in the head in the middle of Star­bucks, spray­ing slith­ers of my brain and skull shrapnel into the Soy Lattes and Tall Skinny Hold The Froth No In Fact Give Me More Froth Give Me More More More Froth Until I Froth From The Mouth Capucci­nos of my fel­low aspir­a­tional consumers.

Increas­ingly, I find myself unable to begin the work­ing day without skulk­ing side­ways into Starbucks—before the cor­por­ate revolving doors of gleam­ing glass grab me in their spin cycle—to get myself a hit of hard, unfor­giv­ing caf­feine, and then shiver as it passes through my needy, greedy veins.

I sit by the win­dow, drink­ing over-priced liquid that has, some­where back along the retail chain, been swilled in the gul­lets of taste test­ers and passed through the bowels of cor­por­ate focus groups, before being squeezed out into the cupped hands of well-heeled urban social­ites in need of a fix. I am a will­ing pawn of the global brand, all because I need to stay awake and on edge for the next few hours, in a state of false alert. I am only a stone’s throw away from the well-known media organ­isa­tion that I call home for at least forty hours a week. I am typ­ing mes­sages into my desir­able con­sumer touch-screen mobile phone, com­mu­nic­at­ing in 140 char­ac­ters or less with people I have never met and who don’t really have any desire to know what I’m think­ing at 8:32am on a week­day morn­ing, but who believe it’s a mir­acle of the mod­ern world that they have such know­ledge at their fingertips.

As I sip and breathe and breathe and sip, I watch the sheep wend their way through the bru­tal­ist street fur­niture towards the first rung of the busi­ness lad­der. I moment­ar­ily con­vince myself that I’m far too good for them. Too good for this. I’m the pred­at­ory wolf, laugh­ing at their dumb com­pli­ance. Need­less to say, my sheep­skin jacket is stuffed out of view under my chair until I leave; until I return to the suf­foc­at­ing warmth of woolly-minded acceptance.

I sum­mon a younger me from the shad­ows, and out of the corner of my eye I can see the look of dis­gust on his face. He gulps down a cheap instant cof­fee, while I patiently and hope­fully wait for the cold metal­lic click against my right temple.

Comments: 8

    It’s best not to do busi­ness with those younger ver­sions of one­self, I find. They get very cross, or worse, are just ter­ribly disappointed.

    I too sidle into Star­bucks every once in a work­day lunch­time while. They do the best sand­wiches in Bex­ley­heath (hardly a ringing endorse­ment, more a sad state­ment on the qual­ity of repast available).

    Cheerful One | 08.06.09, 10:35

    I’m lucky my younger-me is never awake at that ungodly hour, oh no. She is passed out in a strange bed some­where get­ting over last night. Least it makes me freer to give her the dis­gus­ted look right back.

    Ani | 08.06.09, 20:53

    Shun star­bucks and go green tea.

    You need:
    Tea infuser mug
    loose green tea leaves

    Blue Seaurchin | 08.07.09, 18:34

    I think Star­bucks gets a bad rap.

    I have been off cof­fee for 2 months — not a caf­feine eschew­ing prac­tice. My cho­les­terol is soar­ing, and I read a study that sug­gests cof­fee made via steam my be a cause of such soar­ing. We’ll see in Septem­ber when I get rechecked. I thought giv­ing up would kill me. Turns out I really like the hot milk aspect of my morn­ing bever­age. I’ve been ask­ing for tea with more hot milk than hot water. Nutjob.

    ellie | 08.08.09, 05:55

    Surely there is an altern­at­ive altern­ate to Starbuck’s in the big smoke? I have found a cool Korean pub/resto/smoking garden near work in the little smoke that I shall be fre­quent­ing more reg­u­larly. Not sure if my younger self would do more than nod at me from another table though.

    Columbo | 08.08.09, 10:58

    If it where pos­sible to die by the inges­tion of caf­fein, I would have died long time ago, while sleep­ing at my mother s house in my pink kid s bed

    mariana | 08.10.09, 23:51

    You paint a broil­ing pic­ture. I’m think­ing Nausea, I’m think­ing night­mare. Too much stuff, too many people, I would explode.

    isabelle | 08.11.09, 10:16

    Cheer­ful One — I bet the younger ver­sion of your­self had bet­ter hair than the younger ver­sion of myself.

    Ani — Did the younger you indulge in one too many bottles of Tizer?

    Blue Seaurchin — I would love to be that healthy and drink green tea. Unfor­tu­nately … NO CAFFEINE. *shudder*

    Ellie — No cof­fee? For two months? *shud­der* *again*

    Columbo — Hello and wel­come. Where I work, the only decently-priced altern­at­ive to Starbuck’s would be the cof­fee in the staff canteen. *shud­der* *you get the idea by now*

    Mari­ana — Never drink cof­fee in bed. It stains the duvet.

    Isa­belle — Nausea and night­mare isn’t far off. But then I am usu­ally in there drink­ing cof­fee before steel­ing myself for my assault on the office.

    An Unreliable Witness | 08.16.09, 18:20

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