The Brain Coffee by King Harv’s Imperial Coffees

The True Tale of King Harv’s Imperial Coffee’s Horrible Experiments with Rapid Caffeine Intake – Part 1

Chapter 1 – The Brain Probe

I still remember my 5th shot of espresso, waiting impatiently for the caffeine to do its thing. Time ticked by so slowly.  Too slowly!  “Use your mind, Man!”, I said to myself.  There must be a quicker way!  Didn’t those folks in North Texas come up with some ingenious ways of staying awake a few decades ago?  Sadly I did not have access to any cattle, so I would have to come up with my own system.

It was clear from the start that I would need direct access to my brain.  And so it began with a Black and Decker drill and a 1/2” steel bit.  How to bypass the initial pain of penetration was a concern.  Alcohol and drugs were not possible, as I had to operate the drill while looking in the mirror.  My remedy was to acclimate myself to the procedure.  For 27 consecutive days I would, with ever increasing force, hit myself in the target spot with a Phillips screw driver, gradually getting used to the pain.  By the time I used the drill, it would seem mild compared to what I had already gone through.

And so it was.  Really, there were only about 4 seconds of intense pain as the bit burst through my skull, then into the non-sensitized neural tissue.  I had hoped, and apparently was correct, that I had picked a “safe” area where losing a quarter inch deep chunk of brain tissue would not be overly harmful.  

Once done, I had a delightful 1/2” hole directly into my brain in which to experiment.  I used a black rubber plug purchased at the local hardware store to fill the hole when not in use.  Oh, I know, you are concerned about infection.  Well, that is where alcohol did indeed come in handy.  I would each day remove the plug, fill the hole with a mixture of gin and vodka, and then reinstall the plug. Shaking my head vigorously afterwords seemed like a good idea, so I did that as well.

Ok, so now I had brain access.  As a self made working man, I did not have expensive surgical probes available, so I purchased a box of stainless steel 9” nails, the thinnest I could find, washed them in hand soap, and proceeded to slowly insert one into the open plug.  Through the gin/vodka slurry, past the rough edges of drilled out skull, and finally directly into my brain itself.

It a fiasco!  Apparently I must have tapped into the “nausea” part of the brain, as I almost instantly had to disgorge my stomach’s contents, which I did, directly into the mirror in front of me.  I used a hand towel to try to clean the mirror, which only succeeded in spreading around the disgusting residue.  Why oh why did I have Mexican food the night before? Well, no one said it would be easy.  I pulled out the probe, poured in a shot of the alcohol mixture, and put the plug back in. I would have to start again tomorrow. 

Tomorrow came and went, and I did not proceed.  Why you ask? Were you conceding defeat?  Of course not!  But the experience did made me think perhaps I should go about this in a smarter fashion.  And so the breakthrough came.  A probe made not of metal, but of myself.  Bone!  I needed bone!  My own bone!  It would be the answer.  Once inserted, the bone’s own marrow, a virtual stem cell factory, would encourage brain cells to grow in and around it, happily multiplying the way those little darlings like to do.  But where to get this bone?  Well, dear friend, you might have noticed, had we shaken hands via the left arm instead of the right, that I am a man of 9 fingers.  

Chapter 2 – Are You Out of your Mind?

My God, it hurt!  My left index finger apparently had its own religious views on the subject of amputation.  It strongly let me know of its disapproval by violently spouting out arterial blood and making these horrid cracking sounds as I pressed down harder and harder with my vintage PVC pipe trimmer.  What was I thinking?

One could, arguably, say I was not thinking at all.  But that would be untrue.  I’ll tell you about that night.   I was slowly savoring my usual evening meal of eel, lutefisk, and blue cheese lasagna while downing countless shots ‘Earl’s Famous’ Durian Fruit Brandy.   Out of character, I had the radio on. The shortwave radio.  The one tuned to the British Halley VI Research station in Antarctica’s nightly broadcast.  The one with the drunk radio operator.  The one ranting about PVC pipes and their resemblance to deep sea vent worms.  And how, if you have PVC pipes of smaller widths, you can spray paint them red and slide them in and out of white outer pipes, making them look even more like those angelic vent worms.  Well, someone was most certainly having a long winter! Still, how intriguing. I could do that!  I could…  No I could not.  I had my own dreams to pursue, and tonight was amputation night.  While I could not dance the night away with PVC sea worms, I could, at the least, use the tool that would have created them.  My trusty PVC pipe trimmer.

Chapter – 3 Preservation and Preparation 

That all happened three days ago, as  you well know.  My rebellious index finger spent that time in a luxury resort of sorts for lonely body parts, otherwise known as a half empty pickle jar.  From all appearances, it seemed to have done the job, as Mr. “Get that thing off of me!” Finger looked none the worse for wear.  The pickles still tasted the same as well.  Meanwhile, I had a bit of a problem with my black rubber brain plug.  Maybe more than a little problem.  It had become loose.  Quite embarrassing at the All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet, I can tell you that!  I was bending down to reach for that last piece of Szechuan Short Ribs  when the plug popped out and landed in the formerly popular General Tao’s Chicken tray.  Even worse, the alcohol lymph fluid literally gushed onto the Egg Foo Young platter. 

The elderly woman to the right of me seemed to be turning green in the face, until she converted copious amounts of of what was once very content domestic stomach acid into its riotous, sebaceous cousin known to gentlemen worldwide as involuntary regurgitate.  The lady had been planted in front of the Scallops in Lemon Garlic Sauce for most of the evening, which subsequently became her own personal ‘ground zero’ .  Hence the poor deceased mollusks were to soil my acquaintance for the second time that evening. 

At this point Mr Chang, the once gracious and welcoming restaurant owner was to all intents and purposes auditioning for the one man play, ‘I Aneurysm’.   It did raise the thought that perhaps I should be moving on, and after a few pieces of sheet cake that would have caused a chemist to blush, I did indeed take my leave.

Chapter 4 – Bumbling Luck

It’s 5:15 am, and snow is blowing all around. Time to take a chance.  Time to be on my ‘A’ game.  Time to act with abandon and wild instinct! I reached back and pulled on the brain plug.  Nothing  happened.  It was stuck!  I tried again, and again failed.  I knew what it had to be, the enemy of all Brain explorers had come to pay a visit.  Mr. Vacuum is here.  Cockiness preceded him.  And total shock, shame, and weakness would soon become him, as I pulled out Swiss army knife and began to scrape.  What an unpleasant sound!  Finally, with a small burp of gas, the brain plug was free.  I rinsed it a few times, left it on the kitchen counter, and exhaled slowly. 

The two ounce shot of espresso was ready.  The funnel was in place.  It was time to pour the espresso.  DIRECTLY into meet my Brain!  END OF PART 1

UPDATE: just for this post , on a whim King Harv Imperial Coffees created a special blend just for the Brain story.  Here’s a link…

https://www.kingharvscoffee.com/product/TheBrainCoffee/262

And it’s on sale for only $19.95 for a pound, with free shipping.  Good lord! (And good coffee!)

Authors Note

This is the first of an expected 4,268 part series.  And as an completely unbiased aside, I highly recommend King Harv’s Imperial Coffees, www.kingharv.com, for all your coffee needs. (This is endorsed. Not the 4,268 part series — I’d need a bigger blog! — but if you look to the right side of this blog there is a link to King Harv’s coffees. I don’t get a cut of sales. Full disclosure forces me to say I DO sometimes get coffee, but that’s it. Anyway, it’s great coffee. Over time my preference has moved from Saturn to Two Cats and I can’t tell you why. Oh, yeah, I believe they’re also having a sale.)