I think I have the symptoms of a serious chemical imbalance. Specifically, America’s favorite stimulant doesn’t seem to be working as a stimulant. I am familiar with the concept of tolerance… but this goes well beyond your garden-variety tolerance issue. It’s as if I’ve punched my ticket to bizarro world, or left this plane of existence, did not pass go, did not collect my $200, and went straight to hell. You see I’m strapped in the back seat of a van barreling down the highway towards Orlando, Florida.

*** This is a test of the Vacation Disaster System. In the event of an actual vacation, this alert would be followed by an intervention; to make sure you really wanted to spend your vacation in Central Florida. ***

As it happens the occasion of this trip is not a vacation, but a visit with some blood relations of my in-laws. Anyway, I’m sitting in the van with my knees pushed back into my appendix, sipping some store brewed joe, when I begin to feel drowsy. DROWSY?!? I just sucked down thirty-two ounces like a horror movie monster; I should be wired like the gas tank of a ’76 Ford Pinto hatchback.

I’m beginning to suspect foul play. I can just picture a disgruntled Dunkin Donuts employee indiscriminately slinging decaf to the unsuspecting a.m. customers with an evil gleam in his eye.