Coffee, tea, or a millenary event so devastating in its impact that no lifeforms and no Starbucks remain

I should have known I was in for a significant head cold this week. That funny feeling I got mid-day on Monday was my first clue--that weird somethin'-somethin' in my head and my sinuses that tells me things are not quite right, that something in my system is amiss and awry.

So I acted accordingly, heading to the local Giant Eagle after work. (Such a charming, comforting name for a supermarket. Whenever I think about paying a visit to Pittsburgh's sole major grocery store chain, I am haunted by the image of a enormous bird pursuing me as I make my way across the parking lot with my purchases, swooping down and picking off bags of groceries from my cart, just because he can, bad-ass eagle that he is.) There I stocked up on life's cold and flu necessities--soup, soda crackers, and juice, along with matzo meal, chicken stock, risotto, fresh-cut pineapple, and the latest issues of Star, The Weekly World News, and The National Inquirer. I believe it's important to keep up one's mental strength, as well as physical strength, during a time of illness and convalescence.

But the one thing I forgot--OK, two things--are so essential to my survival that I feel as if I waterboarded myself into submission to the more powerful cold germs.

I didn't buy any coffee. And I didn't buy any creamer.

For some, forgetting coffee and creamer would be "inconvenience items," also-rans on the shopping list, an oh-I'll-get-it-next-time-I'm-at-the-store lapses. Take or leave. Give or take. Shrug shrug. La di dah.

But for others, such as myself, forgetting to buy coffee and creamer at the supermarket is akin to a jetsetting junkie leaving behind his moneyclip full of cash on a buying spree in the poppy markets of Afghanistan. It's like an alcoholic boarding a 14-hour trans-oceanic flight and only bothering to order Tab and Fresca when the beverage service comes around--and not even sneaking into the galley to drain all the miniature bottles of gin and vodka somewhere over Guam. It's like Larry Craig going to a men's room without a shopping bag.

In other words, it's a world gone totally, utterly cattywampus. Admittedly, the people who promulgated the treaties we now know as the Geneva Conventions might not call it torture (and most assuredly the White House wouldn't), but I suspect the folks behind the Gevalia Conventions would feel very differently.

I don't consider myself to be a person with an addictive personality. Obsessive, oh yes. Haven't I testified enough to that fact in these bits and bytes? But addictive, no, not really. Coffee, along with buying music online by obscure acts in countries other than the U.S., and playing The Sims (and now The Sims 2) until all hours of the night would be as Betty Ford as it gets for me. Nonetheless, the whimsy of this list aside, my forgetting to buy coffee should not be taken lightly. Coffee is serious business. It's a part of my morning routine, as innate as the first whiz of the day, brushing my teeth and dribbling toothpaste down the front of my shirt, and my being late for work. Coffee first thing in the morning is perhaps me at my Italian-roasted, espresso-ground, French-pressed essence.

The funny thing is, though, I did remember to buy coffee for my colleagues at work. Two bags of ground Peet's, French roast and Major Dickason's blend, which should get the three of us through the next week or so. (We've all got that coffee monkey on our backs where I now work.) Even stranger is the fact that I didn't really want to drink any coffee this week. It didn't taste right, and it smelled worse. All I craved this week was--e-freakin'-gad!--hot tea, and not even my usual favored, flavored rooibus or the hard-bitten, macho-man-of-the-Pampas maté, just a plain, simple, and throat-soothing lemon and ginger.

*Shiver*

What is to become of me now? Instead of my usual over-caffeinated, devil-may-care, brightly-colored-clothing, and laughing-too-loud-in-public personality, will I now be reduced to trolling the streets of Pittsburgh in Blackspot shoes and earth-toned hemp clothing, quietly asking for a soothing cup of green tea, no sugar, please? Will I drench myself in essential oils, don a puka-shell necklace, and be seen teaching a bandana-wearing golden retriever named Freedom how to play Ultimate Frisbee? Will I now always insist on unbleached and earth-friendly, fair-trade and gluten-free, organic and biodegradable, no matter what I'm ordering or purchasing? ("Do you have any options other than window or aisle seating? Maybe something in the lactose-, growth-hormone-, and cruelty-free section of the plane?")

I'm so afraid . . . so very, very afraid . . . .

Not to mention a little groggy, not the least bit jittery, and only slightly less angst-ridden than normal.