Highly caffeinated

Coffee!\nO muse! O divine fuel! Without it, column writing would be impossible. Clearly, the ancient Ethiopian shepherds, or whoever it was that first discovered such homely little beans could be turned into a magical elixir, must have been masters of public debate. What a thing to hear! Ahh, to have been one of those sheep!\nBut never mind what it does for the craft of the well-wrought opinion -- without it, our society would grind to a halt. Eighty percent of Americans are coffee drinkers, 53 percent daily, according to USA Today (Oct. 6). Further, the über mass-market daily reports that demand is pushing the fast-food industry -- traditionally purveyors of molten tar with non-dairy creamer -- toward going gourmet. Indeed, Burger King is set to start offering "turbo-strength" coffee -- consumption of which, presumably, makes the "The Matrix" look like "Leave It To Beaver."\nI know what you're thinking: The coffee thing is so 90s. It's done -- it was all Starbucks, "Friends," bland, hairy rock by the Counting Crows ... But, you see, the 90s was when coffee was a luxury item. Coffee then was about pretty 20-somethings idling around in plush armchairs ordering expensive drinks in strange, alien codes that might or might not have been Italian.\nNo, this is the 21st century: the age of coffee as lifeblood -- coffee as necessity. On Sept. 26, BusinessWeek reported "more than 31 percent of college-educated male workers are regularly logging 50 or more hours a week at work, up from 22 percent in 1980." Furthermore, "Forty percent of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep on weekdays ... (compared to) 31 percent in 2001," and "About 60 percent of us are sometimes or often rushed at mealtime, and one-third wolf down lunch at our desks."\nThe folks at BusinessWeek argue that this growth in work hours, despite booming productivity, is because of the failure of organizations to adapt to the revolution in information technology. Whatever. Those of us involved in this column -- you, me, the other tens of people reading this -- we know what it takes to keep this engine going. Where organizational design fails, caffeine-enhanced biology can take up the slack. And if it doesn't? Well, that's just unthinkable. You might as well start having siestas! And next thing you know, you're eating tapas! And going to bullfights! And building Alhambras! And using "vosotros" for formal second-person plural pronouns! And there just isn't enough time in the day for "vosotros"!\nNo, there's too much to do to lose a third or so of one's lifetime in sleep. If the average human lifespan is 72 years, we coffee drinkers must live the equivalent of 96! And maybe more! Scientists are claiming coffee is rich in cancer-preventing antioxidants -- so we could still be twitching and talking to ourselves when all the normal, "well-adjusted" suckers are long gone (Reuters, Sept. 26). BWAHAHAHAHAH!\nWhat? What's that? Yes, I had eight cups today. Why do you ask?