My Coffee is Messing with Your Mind

… or “Some People Just Don’t Think 30 Rock is Funny!”

Now, I usually hate it when people mess with my mind, so why would I want to mess with someone else’s?

The best manager I ever had simultaneously impressed and appalled me when she explained parts of her interviewing process, from the inside, with me as one of the interviewers. I had of course already experienced the process from the other side of the table. When I interviewed, I had talked to a few engineers in the department; then I met with her. Our meeting went way past the scheduled time, and she gave me a tour of the department. (That’s always a good sign.) Needless to say, I got the job. And now, from the inside, I got to evaluate that process in a different light.

For example, each person I had talked to was to test me not only in a particular technical area but also my personality and behavior. One person was to say something incorrect, to see whether or not I’d disagree. Another disagreed with me when I was right, just to see how I would handle it. They even colluded to pry open my psyche: Near the beginning of the afternoon, one person told me in 3 sentences what the group did. He made me repeat it back to him to make sure I was listening. Then near the end, someone else asked me what the group did, to see whether I retained that information. I had just thought they were making conversation. In reality, it was a test.

These tricks placed the interview somewhere between a magic act and a shell game. They were both clever and devious; clever, because as a candidate you never saw them coming, and devious, because they probed into aspects of oneself which one usually considers personal, private. Now as part of the stage crew, after learning how these tricks were done, I wasn’t sure whether to feel awed or violated. But I did my part in perpetrating the trick on the next unsuspecting candidate.

Sometimes messing with someone else’s mind can be educational. Sometimes it can demonstrate who you are and who the other person is, depending on whether he gets the gag. And sometimes it can be just plain fun. So what else was I to do when I had the following conversation on Twitter?

(All of the following tweets were public.)

jtimothyking: Headache. Need coffee. Must work on Abe’s Turn. Almost done now!

formatted_dad: When headache=no coffee then coffee=addiction. 😉

Now, let me interrupt my story to quote Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis: “Where do you start explaining when a man’s words show there isn’t anything he understands about subject, instead is loaded with preconceptions that don’t fit facts and doesn’t even know he has?”

Firstly, (1) I didn’t actually link the headache and coffee, any more than I linked the coffee and Abe’s Turn. And (2) if the headache and coffee were linked, that wouldn’t necessarily imply caffeine addiction, because caffeine is a headache reliever (which I’ll get to in a moment). And (3) if I were addicted to caffeine, it would hit much later in the day; I know, because I’ve been addicted before. But–and I hate to admit this, for reasons I’ll clue you in on later in the story–(4) I’m not addicted to caffeine, because I simply don’t drink enough of it anymore. But even if I were, (5) that wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing. As I said, I’ve been addicted before, and I managed to function just fine with my addiction. Coffee is one of the simple pleasures of life. I choose it consciously, with full knowledge and responsibility for what I’m doing.

By the way, (6) I also don’t get the wink-and-smile. This is funny? But then again, I don’t get 30 Rock, or Arrested Development. They’re not funny. They’re sadistic.

(To be fair, I did only see one episode of 30 Rock, but it upset me so much, I refused to watch even the 4-episode minimum I usually watch before judging a show.)

Where do you start explaining? And how do you do it in fewer than 140 characters? I was so close to just ignoring it. But why not use the opportunity to say a little of what my writing is about, of what I’m about? So instead of ignoring it, I adopted the preconceptions, accepted them, for the sake of argument, for the sake of poking, just to make a point:

jtimothyking: And that’s bad… how?

formatted_dad: Caffeine addiction. http://www.myaddiction.com/education/articles/caffeine_addiction.html

If you follow this link, you’ll see it sacrifices credibility in the first paragraph: “… caffeine employs the same effects [whatever that means] as alcohol, LSD, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, nicotine, opioids, benzodiazepines, and other major drugs. This makes caffeine the widest used psychoactive drug in the world.” Whoah, man! Hey, is that why I always see kewl colors running down the walls every time I take a hit of espresso? (Too bad, they didn’t mention marijuana in that list. Otherwise, I could have used some of my Reefer Madness material.)

The page goes on to say, “Where as [sic] all other drugs have a social stigma attached to them, caffeine products from chocolate to coffee are widely accepted by the general public.” Uh. I think there’s a reason for that: Because caffeine is not a huge social problem– Of course, neither were most drugs until the government made them illegal. Anyhow, chocolate contains no caffeine. (Chocolate’s active ingredient is theobromine, similar to caffeine, but a less potent stimulant with different effects.)

Somewhere in my files is an unfinished short story, set in a world in which caffeine is illegal, people brew espresso in hidden rooms, quality green is traded on the black market, and crappy NoDoz® rip-offs go for $10 a pill. Not a completely original idea, granted. It was supposed to be funny. And since then, others have indeed run with the same idea. Back in the day, before I knew how to write fiction, I also wrote a short-short called “The Department of Caffeinated Beverages”–What if the government ran Starbucks? Answer: Customers would wait in line like a day at the DMV, bombarded with hype about how new programs are always making their lives easier and better, overjoyed to sip from a cup of day-old, burnt coffee.

Seriously, though, if we’re making drug comparisons, caffeine is probably more similar to cocaine and related drugs. Both are stimulants. (Though caffeine is primarily an anti-somnolent, whereas cocaine is not.) Both have some similar effects on the brain (but also different effects). Both cause acclimation, so that a person must take higher and higher doses to achieve the same effect. Both lack classic withdrawal symptoms, such as those of heroin, morphine, other opiates, and alcohol. And were it not for the Coca-Cola Company, caffeine may have been outlawed along with cocaine.

Actually, I do link headaches and caffeine. I occasionally get migraines or tension headaches. As a boy, I remember my father getting them, and I think I got them from him. (Recent research suggests migraines are hereditary.) Sometimes I can’t tell whether I have a migraine or tension headache, but this particular headache on this particular day was accompanied by nausea, photophobia, and dizziness, leading me to believe it was a mild migraine. In any case, ibuprofen (or acetaminophen) combined with caffeine is a combination known to be effective against migraine and tension headaches (and other headaches), because the caffeine blocks adenosine, which is a factor in headache pain, thus alleviating the pain.

(In fact, a caffeine-withdrawal headache is probably caused by the same mechanism as a migraine. The caffeine blocks adenosine receptors in the brain, so the body compensates by generating more adenosine and more receptors. That’s why you need to drink more and more coffee to get the same caffeine buzz. When you suddenly reduce the amount of caffeine in your system, you’re left with too much adenosine in your blood–and not enough caffeine to block it–which gives you a headache that feels just like a migraine. “Caffeine, in other words, alters the nervous system in just the right way to make a person a migrainer. No wonder, therefore, that exposure to caffeine can be followed by a withdrawal syndrome indistinguishable from a migraine episode.” This is from CaffeineAndMigraine.com, whose thesis interestingly enough is that caffeine use may cause all types of headaches.)

Well, I did not want to explain this all on Twitter. I couldn’t fathom how to do it in under 140 characters. Half of me didn’t even want my tweets to understand it, because I would much rather that people start spreading this rumor about me, that I am a caffeine addict. Think about it. It’s a relatively harmless rumor; it actually used to be true; it may even still be true; it makes political points from a libertarian perspective; and it would mean that people are talking about me. Would that I were so famous that anyone would actually care whether I am a caffeine addict!

Oh well, I thought that thought might at least make for a neat little joke, at least to those who “get” me.

jtimothyking: My migrane isn’t going away, despite the ibuprofen + coffee. Been awhile since I’ve had one. Curling up in a dark room w/ Gilmore Girls.

jtimothyking: Please start a rumor that I’m addicted to coffee. I would love to be famous enough for unsubstantiated rumors about me. 🙂

formatted_dad: Apparently you have no sense of humor. My first post was meant as a joke, But since you have no sense of humor, bye.

(As of now, he still follows my tweets. So maybe that was another joke?)

-TimK

P.S. It’s entirely possible that formatted_dad knew exactly what he was saying, and what he was linking to, and how silly it all is; and it’s entirely possible that he was messing with my mind, and maybe that’s the joke.