Prisoner's Dilemma

The good news is, my co-workers have started making coffee. The bad news? Someone has introduced decaf into the building.

Our break room has three identical coffee pots. One of these things is not like the other. Some communist has put decaf in one of the coffee pots, and I have no way of knowing which one.

With good coffee, one can generally tell decaf by smell. One can certainly tell by taste. It’s like someone playing a chord incorrectly—something is just missing. There is a note that’s just missing from even the best decaf coffee.

Now, I have friends who for various reasons have given up caffeine. Sort of the way mother pandas sometimes forsake their young, or guppies eat their babies, but that’s their business. They’re good people and I don’t judge them. There are even occasions on which I have been known to order decaf, namely, after dinner on a school night with dessert. Tiramisu without coffee is crime against nature, and if I know I need to get sleep shortly after leaving a restaurant I will order decaf, as long as I know that it has been made from what were once decent beans.

With bad coffee, though, there is no point to decaf. Bad coffee already tastes out of tune. The one real perk is the jolt of wakefulness and the way it can sometimes evoke decent coffee. Bad decaf, though, is just . . . bad. When Jesus looks down from heaven and sees His children drinking decaf coffee, He cries. He did not die on the cross so that sinners could drink decaffeinated Folgers. He wanted us to enjoy his Father’s blessings. Do you know how hard it is to hold a tissue to dry your Holy Tears when you have big, gaping holes in your hands? DO YOU?

Whatever. I don’t care what other people choose to put into their bodies. Their diets of canned peas and stale Krispy Kremes are none of my affair. But the first time I figure out that the reason I’m falling asleep at my desk because I accidentally drank decaf I’m replacing it with Euro Roast cut with methamphetamine.