Iced tall half-sweet light iced iced coffee (with milk)

There are hot summer days when my addiction to caffeine taps me urgently on the shoulder, as though having missed some part of a movie and dying to recover the lost dialogue.

"What did he say?"
"He said, 'you're next,' to the other guy."
"I don't get it."

And then I sigh, turning around in my seat, and I report with contempt:

"He's implying that he knows that the main guy, the spy, is in on it.  And that he's probably going to get killed."
"Ohhh.  Why is he going to get killed?"

And if someone hasn't shushed us by now, the moment is certainly at hand.  I will shift uncomfortably in my seat and whisper sternly,

"I don't know! Nobody knows yet.  Pay attention!"

But my addiction just blinks behind me and says unapologetically, "I can't.  I'm fucking exhausted."

And at this point in the metaphor, I careen into the nearest Starbucks, recite the redundant incantation in the title, fork over twenty bucks and return to my addiction with a plastic cup covered with condensation.  I even put the straw in it for him.

"Here," I whisper, "now shut the fuck up."

And though he usually slurps the ice way longer than he needs to, the sound of melting ice and air hissing through a straw is preferable to the sibilant whispers in the dark and purposeful jabs on my shoulder.  Infinitely so. 

This is why I don't sit next to my addictions.  They are always so desperate for my attention.