Tell Me It Isn't the Coffee

I'm scratching myself like a tick-eaten dog. Every inch of me itches and I don't know why. This is day two of endless digging, rapidly plowing my stumpy fingered hands up and down my body. The itch begins to subside after several hours, but long red claw lines remain.

My butt has big red welts and my thighs look like blue pocked tree stumps. Even my fingers are itching as I pound the keys of this stinking computer. Worst of all, it's like the itch has a roadmap of my body's highway, traveling to a new destination on my skin, when one area of my frame subsides.

I try to think back as to what has changed over the past couple of days and realize that I have added 5000 units of Vitamin D, and a new probiotic to my vitamin regime. Couple that with all the milk I drink and I thought I had found the reason for my discomfort. So today, I dropped the vitamins.

I did have my two lattes, the very reason I have the energy to create my stories. Shortly after my consumption of the first cup, the itching began again. I get that I am having a reaction to something, but I am stumped and fearful that the milk or coffee in my latte may be to blame! I have been drinking two lattes every morning for years!

I rush through the house looking at soap, shampoo, laundry and dish detergents, blankets, towels, clothes, anything that might have changed in the last two days. Nothing. I plod my way back to the kitchen and face my Starbucks coffee cup, the one with the winking mustached man and the big red lips. I let my nose hover above the rim of the cup and slide my tongue across the last of the aromatic elixir. I determine it can't be the coffee. I've been drinking that coffee for decades!

Sure, I've heard about "older" adults developing allergies as they age, but nothing in my head can make me believe I'd grow an allergy to coffee. Even if it was, I can't be expected to give it up, can I?

If so, you might as well bury me now. I'm slumped over my computer just thinking about it.  Depression is setting in. How is any writer expected to survive without coffee?

Tell me it isn't so!

**Reposted from my submission to Book Fun Magazine