The combination pandemic age and alcohol has a tendency to bring forth a host of interesting stories.

Nope, my Covid-era sagas are not ending so soon.

So in 2021, when we got vaccinated after the deadly second wave and started coming out of our shells to experience our normal lives, my mother and sister hatched a secret plan to get me out of my room and start socializing again. 

You see, if I started partying again, then I’ll not make a hue-and-cry when others went out of our home – my sister going out to meet her friends, my mother out to steal flowers from the neighbourhood parks to replant them in her garden and my father apparently moving out 10 times a day to either buy fresh milk, fresh vegetables and anything fresh that cannot be bought in bulk in one go.

My mother argued that if I start socializing again, then I’ll also become a less crankier person although my levels have only increased since birth. 🤓

So I was “coaxed” into messaging all my close friends in Delhi NCR and asking them when they are available on a weekend. A school friend also wanted to meet me and since my sister knew her, she agreed to drop me at the restaurant.

My sister is never that generous but she wanted to ensure that I actually ate at the restaurant. So she sat with us and engaged in small talk while observing me that I was eating and drinking. When I was down one cocktail, she knew that I wouldn’t stop at one and quietly left with a smirk on her face.

And what a cocktail it was! 

Imagine a balanced combination of the silky honey sweet bourbon mixed with frothy whipped delightfully bitter coffee. Now imagine a desiccated orange slice on this liquid elixir – when you drink this cocktail, the bourbon-coffee mixture passes through this slice, carrying with it the sweet and sour flavour of the tangerine family. 

It was a good get-together and I returned home my happier and bubblier version to the delight of my family. 

My sister smirked more on the success of her plan, my father could finally relax that he will use his handkerchief instead of an N95 as a mask and my mother could finally visualize more 9’o clocks in her balcony. 

But I could not sleep that night.

I was hyperventilating that whole night with my brain in an overdrive. The next day went the same too. I told my smirking sister to get the BP measuring machine and when I measured my blood-pressure, my overdriven sleep-deprived brain went for a toss.

The reading came out to be 90/150. 

I think my blood pressure increased more after observing this reading!

I told my mother about this reading and I was immediately advised to consult a doctor and begin “BP medicine”. I booked some blood tests for lipids profile, diabetes and cholesterol. My mother also soothed me  with her comments that “everyone who has high blood pressure consumes these medicines” and “you will have to take them lifelong”.

I think my blood pressure went into an overdrive after these comments.

My blood tests came normal. Although my hyperventilating and insomnia had reduced but my dear brain was still in this loop of “I have hypertension”. 

A week after this incident, I was dumped with dollops of work to be finished in a shorter time frame. I decided to pull an “all-dayer” from 7am-10pm with no rest periods and power naps in between and using coffee as a medium to stay awake and alert.

I began hyperventilating again.

And then I understood that I did not have hypertension. I had an extremely bad reaction to coffee. 😂

Now imagine having that lovely cocktail not once, not twice but four times in a span of 2 hours. I had four glasses of coffee laced bourbon because it tasted out-of-the-world. 

See, coffee and alcohol have opposite effects. One will force you to relax and sleep, the other will coax you to stay alert and active. I had trained myself to sustain huge volumes of alcohol over the years because Momma didn’t raise a quitter but poor me never thought of training my system on coffee.

So coffee overpowered and won, proving detrimental to my racing heart and anxiety-loaded brain.

I have carefully avoided coffee with alcohol from thereon and although I sustained myself on coffee during exam time in IIMB but I was always careful of the dosage.

And the next time I went for a health-check, my blood pressure came out to be 120/70. 😆