Caffeine I
Brief entry here, and not the one I vaguely recall promising I'd write. But...
Been thinking about free speech and caffeine.
First off - went to the ex's house a week or so back, to visit my youngest on the occasion of his confirmation, and stayed overnight in a house with seventeen other people. It's a three hour drive, and you arrive in the sleepy part of the afternoon, and the first thing you want is a coffee.
But the cupboard was bare. Not bare bare - there was an antique tin of some kind of do-it-yourself-latte mixture, something the Ancient Mariner might have sipped from as he stoppeth one in three, and there was some fruity herbal tea (I haven't scanned the appopriate legislature, but tea now apparently means "some twigs and bark in a bag", rather than anything that actually does something for you), and three - all suspiciously unfinished - jars of decaffeinated coffee, uncaffeinated coffee, un-infra-sub-ex-hypocaffeinated coffee and even some molecules of anticaffeinated coffee that she kept hovering in a small magnetic field inside a very hard vaccuum - but no caffeine.
So, back in the car, drive forty kays to the corner shop, slap my money down and ask the good man for a foaming tankard.
Anyway - this got me thinking. Why is caffeine not sold as a condiment? Why can't you buy the stuff along with sea salt and cayenne pepper? Don't have time for coffee with your breakfast? Sprinkle a bit of caffeine on your cornflakes. Want to spice up that tired pork stew kind of thing? Chilli con caffeine.
It wouldn't work, of course. Someone would start mainlining it, as has been done with almost every other substance, and like "they" apparently did with Vegemite* when I was a kid, resulting in a prolonged absence of the stuff from the shelves. Although - IV drugs that are cheap, analytical grade purity, safe, from a supplier we can sue and therefore trust - who knows where that could lead?
Possibly a thought I haven't given enough... thought, if you follow me.
Anyway, off to admit people to detox - apparently there are no people presenting to give up alcohol today or tomorrow and precious few in the foreseeable - the nurses blame the World Cup.
Free speech soon, I promise.
Thanks for listening,
John
*Theologians and philosophers refer to some experiences as ineffable, often numinous. The experience of the numinous or ineffable cannot be translated into mere words, it must be experienced in order to be understood.
Vegemite, I think, is like that. And IV vegemite would almost certainly be.
Been thinking about free speech and caffeine.
First off - went to the ex's house a week or so back, to visit my youngest on the occasion of his confirmation, and stayed overnight in a house with seventeen other people. It's a three hour drive, and you arrive in the sleepy part of the afternoon, and the first thing you want is a coffee.
But the cupboard was bare. Not bare bare - there was an antique tin of some kind of do-it-yourself-latte mixture, something the Ancient Mariner might have sipped from as he stoppeth one in three, and there was some fruity herbal tea (I haven't scanned the appopriate legislature, but tea now apparently means "some twigs and bark in a bag", rather than anything that actually does something for you), and three - all suspiciously unfinished - jars of decaffeinated coffee, uncaffeinated coffee, un-infra-sub-ex-hypocaffeinated coffee and even some molecules of anticaffeinated coffee that she kept hovering in a small magnetic field inside a very hard vaccuum - but no caffeine.
So, back in the car, drive forty kays to the corner shop, slap my money down and ask the good man for a foaming tankard.
Anyway - this got me thinking. Why is caffeine not sold as a condiment? Why can't you buy the stuff along with sea salt and cayenne pepper? Don't have time for coffee with your breakfast? Sprinkle a bit of caffeine on your cornflakes. Want to spice up that tired pork stew kind of thing? Chilli con caffeine.
It wouldn't work, of course. Someone would start mainlining it, as has been done with almost every other substance, and like "they" apparently did with Vegemite* when I was a kid, resulting in a prolonged absence of the stuff from the shelves. Although - IV drugs that are cheap, analytical grade purity, safe, from a supplier we can sue and therefore trust - who knows where that could lead?
Possibly a thought I haven't given enough... thought, if you follow me.
Anyway, off to admit people to detox - apparently there are no people presenting to give up alcohol today or tomorrow and precious few in the foreseeable - the nurses blame the World Cup.
Free speech soon, I promise.
Thanks for listening,
John
*Theologians and philosophers refer to some experiences as ineffable, often numinous. The experience of the numinous or ineffable cannot be translated into mere words, it must be experienced in order to be understood.
Vegemite, I think, is like that. And IV vegemite would almost certainly be.
posted by Bronze John at 10:59 AM
4 Comments:
Well, if I ever stop by my Not-Soon-Enough-to-Be-Ex's house, I'm pretty clear he'll have caffeine. Everyone has some good points. Good thing for me caffeine isn't a controlled substance or I'd be locked up.
Where have you been BJ, everyone here knows that in a pinch you just take two excedrin - caffeine is one of the main active ingredients.
Packet of no-doz, crumbled over the top of whatever food you desire...
I know what you mean about the vegemite. I felt that way about it the other day when I had a sudden craving for some, and after a brief period of feeling very far away from home, I discovered one wee little packet (enough for a sandwich) in the cupboard. I don't think I've ever eaten a condiment with such reverence and complete enjoyment. It was almost a meditation.
But, as you say, these things can't be translated into words, so I must give up now, and go away and try to relive the experience through my memories.
And put in an order for more vegemite. And promite. And Tim-Tams. Damn I miss home sometimes!
(my authentication word today is the name of some Dutch/Anglo-Saxon priest from the Dark Ages: "Bluwryc" the...erm...Sticky)
Ahhhh yes the World Cup. That and the frozen mornings are keeping people well away from us in the mornings.
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