By Tim Rath

Sports Editor

Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I am reading this solely on account of my ravenous lust for tasteless and dangerous new journalism. Tim Rath is not in any way responsible for the strange things that I do under the influence of this piece. I have been warned of the power of words and choose to continue on because I am a dirty little piggy.

Ladies and gentlemen of the incoming freshman class, I have one piece of advice for you — drink coffee. As I enter into my senior year at Oakland University, I’ve come to the realization that if I could only offer one tip for the future, coffee would be it. While scientists are still debating the long-term benefits of coffee, the short-term rush of your very first coffee buzz is doubtlessly an experience unlike any other.

I will recount the story of my own first coffee buzz now:

I may as well have been wearing all white. Trudging into the Oakland Center at 7 p.m. about to begin studying for the first time for the first exam of my college career on the eve of the actual test, I was already worn thin and dead tired when I came across the light.

Not unlike the star of Bethlehem, the lights of Café O’Bears offered this average student the opportunity to escape the realistic realm of rest and possibly pass the exam in the morning. I had always ignored coffee to this point. Regardless, I quickly began a conversation with the woman behind the counter and explained my situation. She gave me a sly, crooked grin and a cup of French roast. Friendliness has always been my downfall.

I could never understand the allure of hot tea and avoided pop except in restaurants. Suffice it to say, my veins were quite healthy before being introduced to this powerful new acquaintance. It could have been merely plaintive self-reflection. Looking back on it, I’m not sure what I would have told my father if I had made it home that night — that I had picked up a fierce, expensive drug habit or that I was hours away from flunking my first linguistics exam.

Whatever caused the brief pause, I’ll always remember the moment after accepting the temptress’ challenge, the same way that veterans can recall the horrors of their ordeal decades after the fact.

It was as if I had heard a cymbal crash or a thunderclap in the back of my brain after a long silence and then a melodramatic voice, like you’d hear in a movie preview:

“And so concluded the addiction-free ways of Timothy Rath, former straight-edge, straight-A student at OU. The rest of his night would not be filled with the cramming that was originally planned, rather, a kind of maddening fever previously known only to championship athletes, hardcore ravers and John Travolta.” 

Then there was calypso music. As I took that first gulp, steel drums, brass and woodwinds provided the soundtrack for a descent into lunacy. The formerly warm café lights above me turned to flickering strobe lamps that seemed to threaten explosion. The television near the front door, constantly tuned to ESPN, was… well, still tuned to ESPN. Chris Berman’s mere existence is always enough to freak me out.

Knowing full well that I was onto something peculiar and altogether horrifying, I did what I usually do in such situations: reach for pen and paper. My linguistics test quickly morphed into the ramblings of a madman as each schwa and labiodental approximant was scratched out in favor of sheer coffee propaganda.

Ladies and gentlemen, here now for the very first time are a few of the rants that I saved since that trip:

COFFEE! Wow! I’m so FOCUSED! I can’t believe that I didn’t drink this stuff straight from the bottle! I could have been a professor by now! Get back, Professor Linguistics: I’m teaching the class now!  COFFEE! Room for cream? Don’t need it, sister! You say you have iced coffee? Sign me up! I can’t even imagine! COFFEE CAKE! It’s a dessert with coffee already inside! I can eat it with coffee for double the after-dinner jolt! Wow! I’ve been thinking about joining the swim team, but I could never get up early enough! Now I can! COFFEE! I want to find some girls! I bet they would love me on coffee! Sex! COFFEE!

It may have been the caffeine that did it to me. After that first sip, I can only remember the rest of the night in bits and pieces. Occasionally while standing in line with the rest of the other junkies, still frames of those memories flood my mind to this day: Riding a deer down Pioneer Drive, scaling O’Dowd Hall with a rope that I somehow acquired and dancing with the grizzly bear statue to the tune of “Stayin’ Alive.”

I fully remember waking up at sunrise in a chair outside the café smelling of espresso, although it may have been dirt of some kind. Sitting up and checking my cell phone for the time, I began to realize the horror of my situation: the exam was in mere minutes and despite my intentions, I hadn’t studied a bit.

As I walked into class, taking measure of the reactions on my peers’ faces as I passed them on my way to the back row of seats, I felt thoroughly unwanted. As fate would have it, a slave similar to myself happened to stumble into the seat next to mine. Clutching a 60 ounce Big Gulp filled with pop from 7-Eleven, I was reminded once again that the only difference between us drug addicts was who took our money.

I remember thinking as I bombed the linguistics exam that I had survived another test, one that could possibly prepare me even better for the future. These days, I’m able to control and mold my caffeine addiction into something of a study aid, I know that I’ll never again be held captive by the likes of that ravenous feeling of the first coffee buzz. Although, to be honest, that loss of self-control is a feeling that I miss sometimes.

So trust me, drink coffee.