Mistake #476: Tea

As I've said before, we here at McWoof Worldwide Enterprises make the mistakes so you don't have to.Here's one I didn't see coming.I'm a tea drinker. Every morning, I sit with my husband and drink tea from our lovely tea set with pretty pink roses on it. The fact that we can't even form sentences until halfway through our second cup doesn't bother us in the least. After all, caffeine is everyone's favorite addiction. It's cute, harmless, vaguely intellectual. You can openly admit to being a zombie until you get your fix and no one will ever suggest rehab.I'm here to tell you, rehab may be in order.After years of drinking tea, recently I noticed something strange. Every afternoon around 2PM, I'd feel as if a helmet of doom had clamped itself onto my head. It was so unfamiliar I didn't know what was happening. There was nothing particularly wrong in my life, so I couldn't figure out why I was so sad and angry. I felt like I was becoming a different person, and not a person I wanted to be.Then one morning, as I'm vaccuuming my apartment, I realize I'm dancing around the living room like a lunatic.That's when it hits me: I'm having mood swings.Well, this is new, think I. I'm an even-keel sort of gal. I don't have mood swings.So I hit Google (as you do). After ruling out brain tumors, alien abduction, and several other slightly less likely culprits, I hit the motherlode.Caffeine.Turns out, countless people have found themselves in similar situations only to discover that caffeine was the bad guy. Yes, it sure does pick you up in the morning. And then it drops you off in the afternoon. I guess I'd upped my caffeine intake so much in the morning that my afternoon drop-off had become unbearable. I mean really unbearable.The very next day, I drank half my usual amount of tea (one cup instead of two) and whammo. No helmet of doom. I'm currently on my way down to no tea at all, and I haven't seen the helmet since.So there. Caffeine. It's not adorable after all.