As I made my bed, I listened absently to the talking heads droning away on CNN. I was already under the influence of a caffeine buzz the size of Texas, and I was giving that bed an lively fluffing that had the dust flying.

Suddenly the announcer issued a teaser that caused me to punch my fist in the air and shout “Yes!” This was news I’d been hoping for all my life.

The inference was that drinking loads of coffee may make you smarter, healthier, wealthier and wiser. I turned the volume up as high as it would go and sat down with my 18-ounce mug of “joe” to seize on every word.

I drink tons of coffee during the course of each and every day, and have long suspected I was brilliant even though absolutely no one else seems to share my belief. (They’re probably caffeine deprived.)

When I was younger – say about 12 B.C.A. (before caffeine addiction), I wasn’t very smart. But then, I was raised in an era when a girl was committing date-night suicide by appearing smarter than her male peers, so who knows how smart I was…or wasn’t.

Then, I was introduced to that mind expanding drug, caffeine, and my intelligence began to climb into overdrive.

A reporter for Time Magazine was sharing this earth shattering news on TV. He’s also an avid coffee drinker who’s been examining caffeine’s effects on the brain.

“It allows you to use what brain power you have in a much more efficient and focused way,” he was saying. He added that pretty much anything you measure will improve with a caffeine jolt including reaction time, vigilance, attention, logical reasoning — most of the complex functions you associate with intelligence.

Ha! I knew it . All these years, my pious friends have been insisting on decaf, while I was the hand-quivering, heart-racing guzzler indulging in full octane – all the while carrying on fascinating conversation- or so it seemed to me.

Scientists at the Medical University in Innsbruck, Austria, have found that men performed significantly better in short-term memory tests after being given a dose of caffeine equivalent to about two cups of coffee. I guess it doesn’t translate to women because I’ve had 16 cups today and can’t for the life of me remember what I had for dinner last night.

Gender aside, studies indicate there is evidence that caffeine can protect against diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as liver damage, gallstones and depression.

Yowza! I ran to refill my cup during the commercial break. While all this data is intriguing, remember you are receiving it from someone who had her ears stapled to lose weight. So don’t go lapping up lattes until you do more research on your own.

Right now, I’ve got to go make another pot of coffee – for medicinal purposes of course