Does America Run On Dunkin? (And If So, Must It?)
A third subtitle of this column could be “Day Thirteen of the Second Great Caffeine Give-Up.”
The first Great Caffeine Give-Up happened last October. I had been in a holding pattern for some time before that, having lived in an apartment I didn’t like in an area that didn’t feel like home for two years, and was soon moving back to Manhattan, where I’m grateful ever to have lived, let alone on two non-consecutive leases. Professionals suggest not making larger life changes simultaneously – don’t get married, switch jobs, move, grow a beard, and go vegetarian all at once (though Mr. McCartney pulled it off, and admirably) – but though I am no Paul McCartney, I rode the wave of change and while settling in to my new zip code I wondered what other areas of my life could be unnaturally altered.
It’s true, I could have started exercising regularly, volunteering weekly, even written on a consistent basis, but I chose to throw my efforts in shaking one of my last standing chemical addictions, Caffeine.
I’d had it with waking up a groggy mess, somnambulating onto the subway, not reading for that time, not fully entering the world of the conscious until around 10am when I had that great Keurig cup of coffee, the first of several for that day, each having built into the best and most important cup of coffee I’d ever had in my life.
Something had to give.
So, coffee was it. Out. I’d minimized my soda intake for other colorful reasons but coffee would be on the altar.
It worked. For a couple of weeks. I weaned myself back onto tea embarassingly quickly. It was in Jamaica Plain, MA that I was out to Sunday breakfast and ordered a tea with my omelette. The waitress made her rounds and filled my empty cup with coffee, and I heard an echo from the center of the universe resound, “This one’s on me.” So I had it. Last cup of coffee I’ve had. November 2008.
The tea continued for another six months, until two weeks ago when it was time to be gone again.
The ultimate source of this life change, take two, is no more nor less the Dunkin Donuts slogan, “America Runs on Dunkin.”
The tumblers aligned and I thought this was a particularly dangerous thing. That I tried to give it up and failed, but have so far succeeded again, convinces me just how deeply embedded in daily consciousness is the intake of caffeine.
I’m young enough to think this kind of experimentation matters, not ready to pour my energy into more worthwhile pursuits. But in the meantime, I’m doing my best to convince myself that the energy I need to do whatever that something is, isn’t necessarily to be found at the bottom of a cup of coffee, let alone one every few hours, every day. The glib answer would now be, “You’re right, it’s to be found in a caffeine pill.”
The answer I’m going with is that the energy can come from within. America needn’t run on Dunkin – we have other fossil fuels, in much shorter supply, to power us. But individually, I’ve got to tap into this source of energy that until now has written my essays and fought my battles but hasn’t gotten me out of bed in the morning. I need to wake up with the enthusiasm of Christmas morning. I’d rather my mind need deceleration than speeding up. I need to wake myself up.
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