Friday, July 07, 2006

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's not coffee

I had a boss in the newspaper biz who was fond of saying, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."

Okay. Unless, I might add, it's decaf coffee. In which case, it's not a duck. It's just muddy water with a rubber nose and a moustache.

My kids are vigilant. They've poured my decaf coffee down the sink thinking it was the real deal and I was cheating (I'm not). It's as if I'm a recovering alcoholic and I have three underage sponsors in the house.

Someone asked me why it is I can't drink caffeinated beverages. ( "I'm a heart patient. Caffeine isn't contraindicated for me.") Okay, goodonya then.

There are several reasons why caffeine is not good. As the redoubtable Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope once said: "All that speeding isn't good for your ticker. Take it from Uncle Cece."

(He wasn't talking about coffee. But it will serve to suit my purposes.)

Caffeine is dehydrating. For anybody, not just me, but dehydration is something I must avoid especially. My blood pressure is low enough as it is without drinking something that will make it not only drop but disappear entirely. There's a reason I have to drink gallons of water and wear a secret scuba suit.

I also don't lie about in saunas, slather Preparation-H all over my body or step in front of steamrollers. I'm just goofy that way.

Caffeine can aggravate PVC's (premature ventricular contractions).

When you have a heart rate that's been documented to travel at 250 beats a minute, you don't want to imbibe anything that's going to make the wings beat faster. Unless you're a hummingbird, or a crack addict.

So, no caffeine.

It is really very logical.

There was something else I wanted to talk about, but the underage sponsors have broken ranks and turned on each other and are holding the dog hostage upstairs, or something. So I'll be back later.

Really I will.