Casual Friday: I don't like coffee, tea, or wine.

I took a night off yesterday because I was really tired and I wanted to spend some time with E.  Tonight my computer is irritatingly slow, and I'm not feeling quite ready to deal with the deep stuff like I did on previous nights, so we'll call this "casual friday" and keep it light.

Thought for the day: It is very hard to be a non-coffee drinker.  Based on statistics, and if you're from the U.S. (since my stats say I got at least one reader from Germany and one from Australia), chances are good that you drink at least one or two cups of coffee a day.  I do not.  I HATE coffee actually.  I don't understand what everyone likes about it.  Perhaps there is something wrong with my taste buds, but with the possible exception of a really good cup of hot spiced cider, all warm drinks taste like plain hot water to me.  Yes, for all the crunchy folks, that includes tea too.  I've tried several times to get myself to drink coffee or tea, but I can never get past the first few sips before I decide that consuming it just isn't worth it for the social aspect, since it tastes so gross.  I've done a little better with tea.  While I was pregnant I was able to get myself to drink a cup or two a day of the Traditional Medicinals Pregnancy Tea, but not through the whole pregnancy.  After my first and second babies I also sometimes drank Mothers Milk Tea, but when I realized that drinking it gave me boobs the size of mountains and breasts that leaked like drippy faucets, I had to stop.  The tastes on those were acceptable, but not good.  With standard black tea I don't even like the taste.  I don't drink iced tea or sweet tea either.  It tastes like grass steeped in water to me.

I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but not drinking either can make things very difficult socially!  Think about it this way: When you're making a new friend, and you want to get together to get to know him/her better, what do you ask them to do?  Go out for coffee, right?  It happens to me all the time.  "This get together has been so much fun! We should go out for coffee sometime!"  Yeah, sorry, not gonna happen.  Why doesn't anyone ever say, "We should go out for shamrock shakes"?  Now, how about when you're at a dinner party. You finish dinner and are in that state of pleasant post-meal euphoria, any social awkwardness that was there in the early part of the evening has evaporated over smiling discussions and remarks about the delicious food.  Then the host or hostess comes out and says, "Who would like coffee?"  Nope, not me, but can I get a double helping of dessert instead?

How about when you're up at 6AM and you barely slept the night before?  You reach for a strong cup of coffee, and no one shames you.  No one says, "Wow, isn't it too early for coffee?"  But when I get up after being up every two hours with a baby, and I reach for a Coke Zero, people snicker.  Apparently Coke Zero is not considered a proper morning beverage.  And don't forget- I have to drink at least 3 cans of Coke Zero to get the same amount of eye-opening caffeine that you get in one cup of coffee.  (Remember those old Total cereal commercials?  "You'd have to eat 12 bowls of raisin bran to get the same amount of whole grains as just one bowl of Total!" But I digress.)

It also looks good in a bikini.

And just when you thought my childish weirdo beverage tastes couldn't get any more awkward, I can also inform you that I do not drink wine.  Any kind, at all.  I used to pretend to drink wine.  I even drank wine when I was with people I wanted to impress, and it was all I could do not to vomit every sip.  While the blech-factor of coffee is its tastelessness, with wine I can taste plenty.  Unfortunately, what I taste is rotten fruit, and isn't that really what it is?

So go back to the classy dinner party with me.  Rewind to meal time, or sometimes even before that at hors d'oeuvres, what do they serve to drink? Wine.  The friggin glass on the table is designed for it.  Frankly, this one is even harder to get out of than the post-meal coffee.  Half the time someone has already poured the stuff into the glass before you sit down at the table.  So what am I supposed to say, "Excuse me, would you mind dumping out this expensive wine you painstakingly chose and spent a hundred dollars on, and filling my beveled glass with diet soda?"  This isn't even comfortable at parties in my own home.  When you crack open a Coke Zero and dump it into a wine glass in the middle of a five course Italian dinner, everyone laughs at you.

When it comes to alcohol, it's either the classiest drink or most redneck drink for me.  Either serve me real french champagne or a cold beer.  Vodka and cranberry juice works too, but be prepared for me to embarrass myself.

Now I'm a girl who loves a fancy party, and doesn't get to attend very many.  Invite me to a wedding and I'll pay to have my hair and nails done, buy a new dress, and keep my heels on all night long.  I'll try the food, even though my tastes in that department are pretty un-classy as well.  But when it comes to drinks, I'd rather be digging mine out of a ice filled Coleman cooler.