Your spelling is fine. Your brain is just pulling a dramatic little stunt when it decides that "friend" suddenly looks made up. F-R-I-E-N-D. That collection of letters that your brain has seen roughly 47,000 times in your life now looks like something a cat walked across a keyboard to produce.

Here is what is actually happening. Your brain gets so full of information that it starts questioning things it already knows. Scientists call it cognitive overload. It is basically your brain throwing its hands up and saying "I cannot confirm anything right now, please hold." The word looks wrong, you stare at it longer, it looks even more wrong, and now you are googling how to spell "because" like some kind of spelling bee dropout.

This tends to happen right around the time your coffee cup goes empty. Coincidence? Absolutely not. Caffeine keeps the brain humming along at a pace where it can confidently say "yes, that is spelled correctly, carry on." Without it, your brain starts second-guessing everything like a nervous contestant on a game show.

Low caffeine equals low confidence. High caffeine equals a brain that can spell "necessary" without breaking a sweat and possibly even remember where it put its keys.

Which brings me to something that is very much worth your time. The Black Coffee Please Newsletter is a whimsical little corner of the internet where coffee gets the attention it deserves. Roasters, great places to grab a proper cup, and the kind of sarcastic commentary that pairs perfectly with your morning brew.

SHARE THIS EMAIL WITH TWO PEOPLE PLEASE! Sorry for shouting from the rooftops but help me keep this ‘thing’ alive.

Caffeinated and mostly coherent

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