Can I have some caffeine, please?

I voluntarily gave up drinking coffee over the summer, sort of as a "detox" program. During finals last semester, I found that my usual cup-and-a-half or so of coffee was not doing the same for me as it usually did. In interests of not becoming a coffee fiend who drinks gallons of coffee a day and spends half her paycheck at Starbucks, I decided to (try to) get by without coffee for the entire summer.

And, for the most part, I did it. Whenever I got taken to Starbucks by Big Firm attorneys, I had either tea (early on) or hot chocolate (later on). Only once I got a cappuccino, and that was my only lapse (I think). A couple of times I got decaf to go with dessert at dinner, but that doesn't really count in my book.

But . . . when you stay up until midnight watching The Incredibles, and you are already running very short on sleep from the weekend for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here . . . you gotta give in. It's unavoidable. I'm already feeling the drag of zero energy right now, and I still have half a workday left.

Starbucks sounds its siren call, and I heed it.