Christmas and New Years are great times to talk about other people\'s addictions. I, of course, am above talking about addictions except for maybe one of my most resistant addictions- coffee in bed in the morning.
Back in the 70s I complained about all the time I lost sitting in bed in the morning before getting ready to go to work. It was more important to me to have my time for staring at the wall than getting to work on time although no one really saw how late I was. At least that was my fantasy but possibly not true. There were spies in those halls and sometimes I would get a warning about arriving after 10. I shrugged it off. That was a mistake but my coffee in bed addiction was more important than my career which turned out to be a short one.
These days I'm trying to at least admit to it. "Hi, my name is Roger and I'm a morning lazy a--," goes my pathetic excuse. No one in the room makes any consoling sounds. I'm crushed.
Certainly most people harbor a secret penchant for staying in bed as long as possible in the morning. I just assume that most people also can't afford the time because they want to get ahead of the commute traffic or at least become the leaders of the traffic, not the lazy stay-in-bedders fuming at the back of the endless slog on the freeways. People should have sympathy for my hopelessly incurable morning sickness.
They don't. I can't even imagine what some of my closest friends would say if I admitted that I can stay in bed for a couple of hours in the morning having left my coffee dregs go cold while languishing in the reverie of my amazing intelligence. I can't imagine having the guts or pure stupidity to even mention this to my friends. I need a support group.
"I'm Mitch and I have the same addiction, but I have a medical condition, see. I\'m old," says a healthy looking gentleman who appears to be my senior by a number of years.
Bingo! The support group works. That's the perfect excuse I've been searching for. I'm just plain old. I can't be blamed for spending a few hours in the morning meditating on my grand seniority in life. I deserve it. After all, what good is getting old if you can't cash in somehow?
"Are you going to see your doctor today," my wife asks in a testy tone, sitting next to me in bed. "You know you have an appointment in 45 minutes."
Now wait just a minute. This is my co-conspirator in the morning coffee addiction. After all, I brought her the daily dose, in her favorite stainless vacuum mug. She didn't even have to get out from under the covers. How could she just accuse me blatantly of being a morning space case?
But the jig is up. "If you don't get out of the door this very instant, you're going to spend the next three hours the waiting room," she says with that smugness of authority that I truly hate. And that waiting room doesn't even have wi-fi.
The chips are down and old is out. With a burst of energy that makes whatever my symptoms were appear to be pure hypochondria, I'm out of the house half shaven, no coffee to go for the commute, no computer entertainment for the wait (I forgot there is no wi fi anyway) and, if my wife doesn't fink on me, no need to admit that coffee in bed is something I actually can rise up against.
Hmm. Does that mean my new 'old' excuse is, in fact, just that?
