The Java Junkie’s Perks and Grinds

Quitting is easy, maintaining is hard. Dignity, as a coffee drinker, that is.

All the time you hear it. You’re minding your business when some condescending highway patrolman pulls you over and asks you if you know how fast you were going. “I have no idea officer; I am in a hurry. I’ve got to pick up my triple grande caramel macchiato before heading off to work, and I’m really going to be late now. . . .”

Honestly.

They’ve gotta know the feeling.

But for those of you who are bowing to pressure and really want to find out if you have the “coffee condition,” Aviv M. Ilan and David Ilan have taken time out of their busy coffee-drinking schedules to present a gauge, if you will. Their book, “You Know You’re Drinking Too Much Coffee When . . .” (Adams Media Corp., 1996), will help you to figure out which side of the line you’re on.

“Coffee plays many invaluable roles in our society,” they write. “It brings us all closer together as we share our intimate thoughts, it stirs up our passions. . . . But there is also a dark side to this percolated pleasure. Excessive coffee consumption can brew up a whole world of trouble. . . . Only in the glamorous make-believe world of Hollywood can this addiction go untreated.”

So get out your No. 2 pencils:

* Juan Valdez named his donkey after you.

* You speed walk in your sleep.

* You grind your coffee in your mouth.

* You sleep with your eyes open.

* The only time you’re standing still is in an earthquake.

* You’re the employee of the month at the local coffeehouse and you don’t even work there.

* The nurse needs a scientific calculator to take your pulse.

* You go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.

* You’ve built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.

* When you find a penny, you say, “Find a penny, pick it up. Sixty-three more, I’ll have a cup.”

* Starbucks owns the mortgage on your house.

* You’re so wired you pick up AM radio.

* Commodity traders use you to predict the world coffee market.

* Instant coffee takes too long.

* You go to sleep just so you can wake up and smell the coffee.

* You name your cats Cream and Sugar.

* You have monogrammed coffee filters.

* You hold a seance to contact the spirit of coffee.

* You don’t salivate, you foam.

* Your life’s goal is to amount to a hill of beans.

--LYNELL “COFFEE BEANS” GEORGE