Trader Joe's Done Done Me Wrong

I'm a big girl. I should know by now. Decaf doesn't mean no caf.

As someone with an extreme--and really, I can't overstate that word, extreme--sensitivity to caffeine, I keep a sort of mental chart of what I can and cannot handle. A few sips of Diet Coke will speed up my heart, but it won't make me sick to my stomach. A whole can? Well, let's just say I'm not that far from my 13-year-old self, who got so hyped up by a can of soda at sleepaway camp that she decided to try to jump off the concrete steps leading up to her bunk. It took the rest of the summer for the skin to grow back on the backs of my thighs after I slid down the last four or five of those steps.

[An aside: When I worry about having bipolar disorder like my dad did, it is to stories like that that I obsessively turn. Because I distinctly remember giggling about how I was Supergirl or something equally insipid. And that is pretty much textbook mania...if you're not on drugs. For me, however, caffeine is very much a drug. Whether there's a connection between the two, well, you tell me.]

What else can I handle? One tall Starbucks decaf coffee a day, so long as the barista actually POURS decaf. (I would say that two out of every five cups I order has to be poured out when I ask, "That's decaf, right?") What can't I handle? Any decaf coffee beverage from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. I don't know why. Their decaf is just too...caf for me. Which is a pity, because their Iced Blendeds kick some Frappuccino ass. But it's not worth the price.

What is the price? Depending on the level of caffeine and the amount I drink, it can include some or all of the following: A rapid heartbeat that easily lasts six hours after I down the drink. Hands that shake more than normal (which means some fairly serious shaking, considering that 'normal' for me is Parkinsonian for most other people). Intense, low-level nausea. Other gastrointestinal symptoms (I'll spare you specificity there). Extreme irritability. And a post-reaction headache that can hang on for days.

So what did TJ's do to me that warranted a scolding in the title above? It sold me a can of decaffeinated whole coffee beans, is what it did. And not just ANY coffee beans. I've been trying to pay a little more attention to the quality of what I eat, and care a little more about where my food dollars go, and so I decided to forego my usual Trader Joe's brand decaf and try this new 'breakfast blend' that was both organic AND 'fair trade.' (I am the world, I am the children, lalalala...) After all, I've never had a problem with any of their coffees before.

Of course, now, one mug later? Oooooooh, I'm not feeling well. I'm not feeling well at all. Like venti-cup-of-full-caf bad. And I'm pissed about it (see irritability on symptom list, above). Because I have stuff to DO. And now I can't. Because I'm shaky, and my fingers are going all over the place, and it's taken me about half an hour more than it should to type this. And my mind is racing, as is my dinner, which clearly wants OUT of my stomach.

Damn you, Trader Joe's. There goes my night. And there goes a just-opened can of what had been a pretty nice, mellow cuppa joe...before it decided to try to kill me. And also, there goes another addition to my mental list of 'don't believe it when they say it's decaf.'