coffee

Now let me preface this by saying I don't drink coffee. Matter of fact my body can't handle anything caffeinated, I start to literally bounce off the walls, so I stay far far away from it. But I think this actually has very little to do with the actual substance that is coffee and is more an overall thought.

A friend from out of town was over last night and this morning she wanted some coffee. Since I'm not a coffee drinker that meant I needed to take her out to find coffee. We had a few options. Close there is a Starbucks which she vetoed as she said she doesn't like Starbucks. Ok also close is a French Bakery where we went for breakfast but they didn't have any coffee she wanted. So I finally took her to Dunkin Donuts. The drive through line was nuts so she parked, I stayed in the car and she went in. She comes back a bit later livid.

I guess at 1st the girl didn't put enough cream in her coffee. Then she put too much in. And rather than have her fix it again, my friend, took the cup and came back to the car. Where she proceeded to get into a fit and pour it out on the pavement.

At this point I was kind of indifferent. I'm like "it's just coffee. If you had that much issue with it, take it back in and make them fix it or get your $3 back." But I felt it unwise, in the state she was in, to make such a comment. So I then tried to think of where else she could get coffee. And remembered a Cumbies that she could hit on her way back to the highway.

Now through all of this I was rather working on partial cylinders as my brain had yet to fully wake up and start functioning. There seems to be a lag in the if I take my meds the night before to sleep, and don't take them the next day, the next day I still get a drugged effect (and most of the previous day) so it takes me quite a while to actually wake up (it's another reason why I refuse to drive in the morning). But I don't really understand that level of upset and frustration over a cup of coffee. I mean we all know the kids working in those types of places (since on the weekends it's usually high school kids working there I believe) are getting minimum wage and not really holding their job in high esteem so they have little desire to go above the bar and make you a stellar cup of coffee exactly to your specs. And most people I know are willing to accept that and understand that they'll get a 'regular cup-a-joe' at a Dunkin Donuts and nothing special and it will probably be wrong in some way. But they just drink it anyway. It kind of just comes with the package deal. Which is unfortunate but also is just the way things tend to go.

But I believe it goes beyond that as many people have such a 'hot button' with various things. And I rather don't so I don't really understand it. Why such a little, rather seemingly insignificant thing, sets people off to such high levels of upset. For another example my friend L was once unzippering her winter coat and having difficulty, so I made what I thought was a placid comment about it, but it completely infuriated her to the point that she yanked the zipper and broke it, meaning she no longer had a fully functioning winter coat and would have to spend money to buy a new one. That seemed like a rather impulsive and rash thing for her to do to me, get so angry over 1 small comment that she basically ruined her coat. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't really think or act like that and I don't understand why other people do. Even my therapist says I'm very non impulsive, compared to most people I guess. But it still makes it very hard for me to wrap my head around why others are so impulsive. And why they choose to live like that when the decisions they make are not very well thought out. It's like they just BAM! act and fail to think about the future next second or day or week or month or year, etc. Which is something I have great difficult fathoming.

Even when I'm suicidal I'm pretty non impulsive. For me, when I act on those thoughts, it's not like a split second decision. It's something I think about for a rather long time, hours, days, weeks, months. And then once I've weighed the sides I can in my head, I make a decision and then act. It may not be the most rational decision, since people try to tell me that any decision pro-suicide is not a rational decision, but still it's something I've spent a long time thinking about. And I don't act on other people's behavior. So for example I don't get suicidal because of something someone said to me, or what someone else did or didn't do. I just don't work that way. Even though I've been told those are common reasons for other people to become suicidal, it's never been a reason for me. The only time I can remember being suicidal and it being related to an obvious outside occurance was when my dog was very very sick and dying, and then a few months later after he died. And I knew that was going to cause it, since that dog was my life line for so many years, and I told my therapist that but he didn't really believe me until it was happening and he went "Oh!" The rest of the time it just seems to come out of nowhere and I can't put my finger on why I'm like that, dr r says it's something to do with my neurology he thinks, but anyway it happens.

But back to the coffee and impulsiveness and rash decisions. I really just have a hard time understanding it. Even as I sit here now, trying to wrap my head around it, it's very difficult. I mean "It's just coffee." And from a chain of coffee places not known for it's high quality or high standards. It's a place that mass produces cups of coffee, mediocre coffee most people say. And if you're that upset, rather than dumping coffee all over the road and half in your car, take it back in and ask for your money back. Rather simple and then you don't have to expend energy getting angry on something so rather insignificant. And you can save your energy for things that really matter. Good or bad.

Maybe that's where it all comes from for me. Conservation of energy. I don't usually have a lot to spare as just functioning in daily life takes a lot out of my system, so I try to save what extra I do have for the important stuff. I would rather spend my energy working on a project that means something to me, or taking a walk with my dogs, or reading a book or teaching or anything really other than getting angry. I had enough expenditure of anger as a kid living in the house I grew up in, it got very tiring very quickly, my father still seems to enjoy getting so angry, I see no point in it. There are better, more constructive and useful ways to spend what limited energy I have in this world. Better to just focus on the moment, and then focus on what chain of events that moment can have in the near future. And realize that being impulsive, rarely gets me very far with that energy spent into the future.