But once you have the coffee you're not going to have to stop thinking about the thing while you go off and make it, so you're saving the effort of state-saving in the future. If you're expecting to need coffee between now and the time it takes to go undrinkably cold it makes sense to make it before you start investing in understanding something.

I find in the mornings I have very few functional brain cycles. If I know I need tea then devoting any of those brain cycles to anything more complicated than acquiring tea risks forgetting that I haven't had tea yet until it's Too Late. Once you're holding the tea you're not going to forget it's there (er, usually), which releases those brain cycles for reallocation towards intelligent responding. It sounds like she had enough brainspace to come up with intelligent answers, but not enough to commit to them publicly, until she had the tea. I can relate to that.

I agree. Also, you pre-empt the possibility that the problem will become more complicated and require the extra alertness contained in the cup of tea.

Many the time's I've woken up half way through thursday and cried "I *thought* I was a bit out of it all week! I forgot to drink any coffee!" :)

I keep doing that with food, on days when I'm at home and K isn't. I go into a big slump mid-afternoon because I've forgotten to have both breakfast and lunch, and I react to this by going back to bed instead of eating. Broken.

Actually, I'm just exactly in the process of doing that now, give or take the odd spoonful of rum-soaked raisins. Perhaps I shall stop spodding and find some lunch.

*hugs* I know how that goes, I'm fortunate to me it's still just amusing rather than actually a problem.