What were once vices are now habits

I have often said that it is a very good thing that I grew up in a household where neither of my parents used tobacco or drank alcohol. Given my tendency toward compulsive personality, I would likely have smoked and swilled myself into an early grave by now.

If you look up "creature of habit" in your Funk & Wagnalls, you'll find my photo there. (Assuming you still had a Funk & Wagnalls. Which, considering that the venerable encyclopedia ceased publication at least a decade ago, you probably don't.)

Take, for example, my morning coffee ritual.

Now, coffee itself has been a part of my daily climb toward sanity more or less since my college days. During my career in the corporate world, I was fortunate enough to have worked for employers who supplied free coffee for their minions, so I never had to actually purchase coffee.

But when I just the ranks of the self-employed, I had to begin stocking my own java. This meant, of course, that I not only needed to buy coffee, but a machine in which to brew it. I'm now on my third Mr. Coffee in the past six years. It comes in handy on the days when I am either too cheap or too lazy to swing by one of the bazillion caffeine-dispensing outlets I can hit from my house with a smartly flung stone, and pay a college student with a nose ring to brew my coffee for me.

What happened recently, however, is that I have begun grinding my own coffee beans fresh most mornings. This process evolved when a client gave me a gift box of whole-bean coffee from Starbucks last Christmas. My nascent ownership of whole-bean coffee required that I obtain a device that would pummel the brown nuggets of joy into usable powder. So with the aid of my nearby Wal-Mart, I became the proud possessor of a Black and Decker SmartGrinder, a marvel of 21st-century technology that whips tiny roasted pods to a frenzy in no time flat.

Before too long, of course, I had exhausted the supply of Christmas coffee. But now that I owned a coffee grinder, I couldn't simply allow it to lie fallow on my kitchen counter. "Feed me, Seymour!" it cried — remarkable in that small household appliances do not usually speak to me, and also in that my name is not Seymour.

But I digress.

So now I find myself trekking every couple of weeks to Starbucks to buy more whole-bean coffee, thus justifying my ownership of the grinder. The beneficial side effect is that I have frequent opportunity to sample different varieties of coffee, broadening my palate even as I flatten my wallet. The less positive result is that every morning after I drop my collegian daughter at her academic institution of choice, I must engage in the elaborate alchemy of coffee-making: grinding the beans, rinsing the carafe, loading Mr. Coffee with water, replacing the filter, filling the basket with newly ground coffee, initiating the brewing, cleaning the grinder, vacuum-sealing the canister where the beans are kept to ensure freshness...

It's a lot of work.

And the scary thing is, I almost enjoy the ritual.

Which means I won't be able to stop doing it anytime soon.

In case you're curious, this morning's grind is Starbucks Ethiopia Sidamo — "From the Birthplace of Coffee," or so the label says. It's rich, complex, slightly acidic yet not overpowering, and it leaves behind a bright, refreshing, almost lemony aftertaste. It does not, however, inspire me to want to run 10,000 meters or convert to Rastafarianism. Take that, Haile Gebreselassie.

Lord help me if I ever get hooked on espresso.