Any fool knows that you can’t just go around cutting out prominent substances from your diet without going through some signs of withdrawal. That’s probably why, when I called my friend Julie to tell her about my new caffeine-free way of life. After that, I drank another cup of tea to try to wake myself up. And another.

“Mommy, you don’t look so good,” my son said as I finished off my seventh cup. In the afternoon, I had a hunch, although I could be wrong, that there was a little man inside my head pounding on an anvil.

So I tried reading the newspaper to get my mind off the pain. But I couldn’t concentrate on a sentence long enough to make it to the end or make head or tail out of it. Somewhere in the middle, I would start staring into space and think about things like high-speed Internet access or the wondrous miracle of life or where, exactly, do all of the lids to Tupperware go.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps smelling coffee wouldn’t hurt. I mean just one or two little sniffs.

But, as I opened the lid on the can, something else occurred to me: if I drank a cup of coffee, I’d still be irritable, overly sensitive, and listless.

In fact, I’d feel the VERY SAME way I’m feeling now. But my headache would be gone and, with a little luck, I’d get my mental edge back. So I made a cup. Just a little one.

But don’t worry, if my husband finds out, I’ll tell him that the toaster drove me to it. — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)