Coffee is an essential part of many peoples’ lives and I am no exception. It’s basically what’s coursing through my veins instead of blood.
Of course, as with everything, there was a time when I was new to the whole caffeine experience and didn’t know much. My first coffee was in 2006, I was a 14-year old kid on his third year of high school. Now, we all know teenagers can be super impressionable, easily swayed by their surroundings, and boooooy, was I impressionable.
One of my favorite songs at that time was “Homecoming” from Green Day‘s seventh studion album American Idiot. It’s a 9-minute song (yes it’s very long because the album is basically a rock opera), but the lyrics that stuck with me the most was “🎶I fell asleep while Spike TV after 10 cups of coffee and you’re still not here…🎶“.
Welp. So my tiny little mind decided to try and drink 10 cups of coffee because it sounded cool in the song.

I spent much of that day, which was a school day, going back to UPV-Iloilo’s cafeteria to buy coffee. I had my 10th cup at around 4PM, when our class was practicing for this school-sanctioned contest (not sure what it was, Buwan ng Wika, maybe?). By then, I was already shaking, extremely hyperactive and jumpy (borderline paranoid?). Good thing I didn’t do anything stupid whilst on a caffeine trip. I have no idea how I managed to sleep that night (if I ever did).
Drinking 10 cups of coffee was one of the dumbest things I’ve done ever and will probably never happen again. But the experience made for a good story, and I’m always one to look on the bright side, so in a way I’m glad it happened(?).
(Kids, ease off on the coffee, alright? This was in the pre-Starbucks days when we didn’t have fancy coffee shops lying around conveniently for us. I am old.)
