An Odd Duck

I'm going to be really honest about something that may shock you.
Brace yourselves.

I've never had coffee.

Yeah. . .
You would not believe the looks of horror and shocked gasps I get when I say that, but it's true.
And people stare at me and go "But aren't you a senior?"
"Yeah."
"And you've NEVER had coffee ever?"
"Right."
"But then what did you do during finals?"
". . . I studied and stayed up all night just like everyone else. . ."
"And you'd just wake up the next morning?"
(Here I was always tempted to say something snarky like "No, I died", but I'm generally a nice person.)
"Yeah."
Then they tend to have one of two reactions: they either keep staring at me like I'm absolutely guano crazy OR they look at me in complete and utter awe.

And then people ask me why.
I just . . . never really wanted to have coffee.
I don't think I'm that weird. . .
I mean, I love the smell of coffee beans, but not when it's actually brewed.
And I don't need it in the mornings, because once I'm up, I'm up, so if you wake me up at 3 AM, you had better have something really cool for me to do, or I will hate intensely dislike you for a very long time, probably proportional to how many hours of sleep you robbed me of.
And the thing that gets people, though, is that I don't plan to ever have coffee either.
The reason why is probably odd by normal standards, but odd things get to me.
When I was a kid, I had to read this book for history or literature, Across Five Aprils.
It's about the Civil War, but there's only one part I really remember: the kid's mom loved coffee, but for one reason or another, they couldn't buy it, and she went through this awful withdraw and could not function, and I remember thinking I never wanted to be that dependent on something that I wouldn't be able to function if I couldn't have it.
Which rules out a lot of things for me.
Oh well.
Whatevs.