TGIF!!!

It's Friday!

That means today is the last work day and then the weekend, which always, always goes much faster than the week, right? Y'all all got your morning coffee in hand, yet? Have two cups this morning to get you through the slowest day of the week. And be sure there's plenty on hand for that day after the weekend...Monday.

Coffee always reminds me of Mr. B's college days. He doubled up on hours, took supper classes and finished in three and a half years.  I might have gone to classes with him if they would have offered things like Romance Reading 101 or maybe Writing Conflict 201. But they didn't so I worked on getting my PHT...that was Put Hubby Through...so he could concentrate on classes, tests and all those boring papers he had to write.

While Mr. B was in college we had one major rule. The person who took the last cup of coffee was responsible to start a new pot. In three years we wore out two percolators. We thought we had so much nervous energy because we were young, full of spit and vinegar, and ready to put out a forest fire with a cup of water.

It wasn’t any of the above. It was simply the coffee.

One week we ran out of coffee twenty four hours before payday. We paced the floor, chewed our nails and the next day we were leaning on the grocery store door when it opened.

There were other tell-tale signs once we got him through school and realized how much coffee was affecting our lives.

We had worn the finish off our coffee table three times. I’d written two letters to the folks who make varnish telling them their product was inferior. The last time they wrote back and asked how many times a day we set a hot coffee mug on the table. More than three, please use the enclosed heat resistant coasters with their logo on the top.

The handle on Husband’s favorite mug had no color left on it and his fingerprints were permanently embedded in the glaze.

We tried a sample of instant coffee one time but the process was too slow. There was a waiting period while the water boiled.

Husband had to see a doctor for a checkup. The nurse took his pulse and asked how much of coffee he’d had for breakfast that morning.

“Two,” he said.

“That’s not so bad. The cuff must need to be replaced. I’ll get another one. Two cups isn’t so much.”

“Not two cups,” I told her. “Two pots and that’s on school days. On Saturdays, it’s more.”

She nodded. “I’ve seen lots of folks with this problem. Mostly college kids.”

I suppose the real tell-tale sign was the day we went to purchase a first aid kit for the car. Back then it was a big thing. One of those little tin boxes with Band-Aids, iodine, aspirin. All that stuff in case we were stranded on the road between Durant and Tishomingo. Seemed like a reasonable thing until we dumped the box on the bed and really looked at the contents. After a few minutes we tossed them all in the trash. The only thing we needed was a pint container of coffee, brewed with twice the coffee and half the water. That would get us through anything.

After a few years, we figured out that sleep was important if we wanted to live to see 50 candles on our birthday cake, so we cut back on coffee. I have found that if I have two drops after supper I will count sheep until the sun rises. A while back I had a small cup with my dessert.

Dawn was a long time coming...and the next day was Monday!