My Husband Is The Devil's Helper

I've had a nagging headache since I returned home from the Surrey International Writers' Conference. I just completed a 10-day round of antibiotics for pneumonia, and was very happy to see the last of these pills which were clearly designed by a sadist. Sure, I only had to take one pill every 24 hours, but they were the colour of a day-old corpse, and too big to swallow without panic setting in. Cramps and nausea always followed, and there was the threat that the pill, after 10 minutes or so of choking it down, would make a break for it so to speak, along with the meal taken as a precaution.

I had a 70% pill retention success rate. 

Do the math.

I really didn't want my doctor to order tell me I had to take more torture another round of those corpse fingers pills.

But after four days at home, I've been nodding off every time I sit down to work or read. I've had no energy to walk the dog, and even though I've been going to bed really early for the past four nights, and slept like the dead each time, I've continued to stumble around exhausted.

I've been fretting.

Maybe it's just conference hangover? 

Jetlag? 

Or maybe the pneumonia is back.

A few minutes ago, my daughter was making herself a coffee and calmly pointed to the bowl where I keep my Extra-Bold Starbucks Deep Dark Smack Yourself Awake And Thank The Universe You're Alive coffee pods. "Did you see what dad did?" she said.

Wait, what?

I leaned in for a closer look. Seems that while I was away, my dear husband, for reasons unknown, decided to "tidy" up the kitchen, and he mixed in decaf pods with my usual extra-bolds.  

 

These Pods From The Devil (there for guests/heretics who may request such dreck) were stored in a separate box, in a faraway cupboard, behind the sacks of potatoes and dog food. I don't know how he even found them, let alone what made him think it was a good idea to put them in the bowl with the normal ones where his unsuspecting, sleepy, jet-lagged, spouse would stumble in and use them and think, "Hm, my morning coffee doesn't taste the way it normally does, but perchance the cream is off." 

A quick count (box of 12 decaf pods now down to 4 pods) and a perusal of the kitchen garbage confirmed my suspicions. I may have pneumonia, but the headaches and lethargy are from caffeine withdrawal.

FYI Starbucks. It's not a bad idea to make your labeling on the decaf devil pods as bold as your regular coffee pods. Just saying.

Oh, as for the tidying up, the kitchen is still an unholy mess with my husband's papers and journals covering every surface. But the coffee pods stacked in a lovely Villeroy & Boch bowl look like they belong on a magazine cover.