A Prayer and Cheer for the World’s Most Popular Life-sustaining Potion

'''Coffee,' Hannah breathed and it was more of a prayer than a statement. She needed caffeine and she needed it now, before Newton’s First Law of Motion, the one about inertia, came into play. A body at rest tended to stay at rest. And applying this principle of physics to her own life meant that if she didn’t get up soon, she might fall under the First Law and just sit on the edge of her bed, staring at the wall all day.

"'Coffee. Coffee now!' it was as close to a cheer as she could come up with in the cold predawn of a December morning, but it served to whet her appetite for the hot, aromatic brew her great grandmother Elsa had called Swedish Plasma.

"Before she had time to think, which would only have served to confuse her, Hannah was on her feet. And then her feet were moving, heading down the hallway toward the kitchen. The coffeepot that had been activated automatically five minutes before her alarm clock had sounded was now sitting on the counter with a full carafe of the world’s most popular life-sustaining potion, just waiting for her to imbibe."

Joanne Fluke, The Candy Cane Murder, p. 52.