Caffeine has always affected me strongly. Always. 
There are times that I lie awake at 3am and think “Why the heck can’t I sleep?” Then I remember I had a Dr. Pepper at noon. Yeah.
The thing is, when you’re using a manual espresso machine like what we have at work, you have to adjust the grind, pull a shot and then taste it so you can see if things are set just right. It’s amazing what a difference a few seconds or slight grind adjustment can make.
This morning, something got messed up with the grind when I was out of the room and it was really tricky for me to get it just right again. It took me about 8 tries before I got it perfect.
Oh, did I mention our machine only pulls double shots?
Yup.
Granted, I didn’t drink all 8 double shots. The girl I was working with had some and I poured a little out. I estimate I probably consumed the equivalent of 8-12 espresso shots though in about 15 minutes. About the last one a guy sitting at the counter mentioned we must get wired at work.
And that’s when I felt it.
Within a few minutes it felt like my whole body was shaking. My hands? Visible tremors. And I immediately feared I would never sleep again.
Now, I’m a fairly upbeat person. At work that is amplified for obvious reasons. As a barista I believe a good word to describe me would be chipper. Me, as a barista, on 12 shots of espresso? Ho.ly. moly.
I felt like my mouth was a runaway train. I talked a million miles an hour. I couldn’t stand still. I was giggling about nothing. Frankly, I was annoying myself. Ugh.
The worst part was we weren’t busy so I had nothing to use my excess energy on. I was all “Quick, what counteracts coffee?”
Coworker- “Uh, beer…?”
I actually considered it for half a second. Except it was like 9am. Oh and the pesky getting fired thing. I still like my job thankyouverymuch.
I really felt like I could have run a mile. You know, like one of those cartoon characters where all you see is the trail of smoke?
Instead I just drank a ton of water and tried to take deep breaths. And tried not to be so freaking annoying. Seriously. Who let me around caffeine?
It’s about 7pm now and I’m just starting to get sleepy. Pretty good considering I only got four hours of sleep last night. And that it’s been ten hours since I consumed any caffeine.
I learned my lesson though. I still have to taste the espresso when I calibrate things every morning. From now on though? I’ll remember to just sip a little instead of downing the whole thing.
After all, I do want to actually sleep at some point.