A Cup Of Coffee

I drink too much coffee.

I have done it for many, many years, and I come by it honestly. Let me explain.

My first job on a major newspaper - it took about four years to get there - was working night cops on a century-old daily paper that was suddenly facing new competition from a well-funded upstart.

Suddenly there was going to be a new face in town, competing with the old Long Island Press, and it would be coming out by 6 a.m. each day.

Back then, most newspapers circulating in the suburbs were delivered by kids after they came home from school. Commuters bought a morning daily on the way to work, then relaxed with their evening paper when they got home.

Morning dailies were thin on local news. You can cover one ball game or one county legislature meeting and make it look like you are on top of things, which meant the evening papers had all the time they needed to fill their pages with news no one had seen that morning.

Now things were changing, and the Press had to beef up its staff by one reporter. That was me, working night cops from 7 pm to 3 a.m. six days a week.

(I should explain the hours. Detective squads finished their tours at 2 a.m., so I could cover breaking news and not make any overtime. The cheapness of publishers is a subject for another blog.)

Anyway, I spent a lot of time in squad rooms - we actually covered things back then - and at crime scenes, and the only way to stay awake was to drink coffee.

Years later, I ended up in a bureau on eastern Long Island, run by a guy who was a swimmer for the Navy. The war in Vietnam needed people on ships off the coast, so that if a plane was going to crash in the ocean, someone was there to jump in and rescue the pilot. Because the Bureau Chief got to make the coffee - something I later did when I became Bureau Chief - he made it the way he was used to drinking it.

His idea of good coffee was black, and so thick the spoon would stand up.

Anyway, that much exposure to coffee - and a lot of meetings that ran late into the night - left me with a habit that reached 9 or 10 cups a day.

Why dwell on this? Well, it’s a window into the toll social isolation is taking on me, and it might give some comfort to others suffering in the same way.

The little things get bigger and bigger.

Now there aren’t many things smaller in life than a cup of coffee. I drink it mostly out of habit, starting with one cup with breakfast, one or two during the day, another one after dinner, and maybe one or two more at night. But, I have been working on cutting down.

As a group, Americans drink well over a billion cups of coffee a year - the figures vary according to sources. Still, even a heavy coffee drinker like me can go days or even weeks without a cup. I’ve done it many times.

Now I try to drink just thee cups a day.

My reward for this iron determination? Less indigestion for one, better sleep for another. And, since no good deed goes unpunished, the realization that the coffee cups are calling out to me more and more each day.

There is probably enough material on why people want things to fill a whole college course. Heck, there is enough even without psychiatry. Think of all the great literature - we can go back to Shakespeare or Chaucer, or even the ancient Greeks - to see just how desire can ruin our lives.

(Important exception. I desire my wife, and she is the best thing that ever happened to me.)

Anyway, I am in the kitchen a lot. You can’t go out the back door without passing it, and you can’t let the dogs in or out without going to that door.

So, I see my Keurig a lot. And, I want it.

I have a cup of coffee next to my keyboard right now. It is getting cold - it will soon go into the microwave - which means I don’t really want to drink it.

Yet, I made it. At some point, I wanted it. And, the longer I have been in my house and keeping away from other people, the more I want a cup of coffee.

The trouble with that is that, after you drink it, you will want another cup. And another. And another - as long as you walk past the kitchen.

Just imagine what kind of trouble I could get into if I had a different vice. Like the Irish Creme flavoring I can pour into a cup, or the raspberry mocha lava K-Cup, or even the Island Coconut.

They say that people feel the same way about chocolate, or heroin, or gambling. Don’t ask me who they are. If the phrase is good enough for our President, it’s good enough for me.

So they say.