Not My Fault!

I have a legitimate excuse!  According to today's paper, it is not my fault that I am addicted to caffeine!  As a matter of fact, it is a genetic inheritance.  It is part of my DNA.  It is a gene, the article reads. I looked no further.  I have a real pre-disposition for caffeine addiction.  Meet my new best friends--CYP1AZ and AHR.

My grandparents on both sides, even great-grandpa Henry, never understood the reasoning behind decaf.  Great-grandpa had a huge white stoneware mug full of coffee at least four times a day, usually accompanied by Petri sugar cookies.  In that mug he put TWO TABLESPOONS of instant Nescafe.  He lived till his nineties.  Grandma D said my perked coffee was too weak.  She added a heaping teaspoon to every cup.  Grandpa Hess and Uncle Roy were never without a pot brewing, each cup served with a sweet of some kind.  Mom and Dad  and my sister ("I only have one cup in the morning," she quips. Yes, but the cup is a 32-ounce tank!), even my sons like their caffeine.  My grandson, at twelve, laces his with milk and an obscene amount of sugar.  It is still coffee.

While my mother's family seemed no worse off for their pots-a-day habit, the rest of us tend to react as though we had consumed quantities of Jack Daniels (or in Grandma's case, Four Roses or Seven Crown).  None of us are mellow to begin with.  Add 80 mg at a time and we become a little hyper.  We all are good at power napping; none of us are insomniacs.  Sleepless nights are a rarity, from stress if at all, and not because of caffeine ingestion.

Ah, there are naysayers among my faithful readers.  It is environmental influence that drives me to Starbucks!  It might be the hope of running into friends.  It could be the people-watching that demands my presence.  It could be the corner table where I catch up on paperwork when it is too dismal for the lake.  Maybe it is a need to be social, or to keep my hands occupied.

Maybe, could be, might be, hope to.  My friends CYP1AZ and AHR don't think so.

So pour me a large coffee, double cream, please. And some for my friends.