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The mommy coffee meeting. A sacred event held on rare days when a group of moms, against all odds, somehow manage to coordinate nap times, babysitters and school events long enough to cull out 30 minutes to simply sit back with friends and complain about the price of milk and to chuckle over the latest PTA gossip.

These times are rare because all it takes is one feverish child to bring the whole gathering to a screeching halt. Other common reasons mommy coffee meetings are canceled include: vomiting, diarrhea and head lice.

Even if just one mom has to cancel, the entire coffee dynamic is altered, and you must work to avoid the awkwardness of being left alone with the one annoying mom in the group. That mom who only talks about how fabulous her child is.Timmy is the best reader in his class.Timmy knows all his multiplication tables.Timmy has a secret laboratory in the basement where he is working on a compound that would completely eradicate cooties. I get it, okay? Your kid is on the fast track for a Nobel Prize, and my kid still picks her nose and eats it. No one wants to be left alone for coffee with this woman.

Weather is not a factor in canceling mommy coffee meetings. Mommies will forge snowstorms and navigate surging rivers to get to sit down and talk with their mommy friends. Unless the weather results in school closings. Then everyone involved is totally screwed.

But sometimes the stars align - school is in session, the kids are not sick, and the annoying mom is on vacation. It's officially mommy coffee time!

So when I got a call from a friend I hadn't seen in a while asking me to meet her for coffee, I jumped at the chance. She said there was this great new cafe that served amazing coffee. When I arrived, she was already gazing at the menu, excited about all the coffee choices. I glanced at the menu and realized that coffee was all that they served.

The greatest irony of mommy coffee time for me is that I never actually drink coffee. I usually just get some kind of weird tea and let it sit there while I chat with my friends.

The reason: I don't drink coffee. It's not that I don't enjoy a good caffeine jolt every now and then, but I prefer to get that jolt from a soda. That way I also get to reap all the negative health benefits of extra sugar and empty calories. And, I've simply never developed a taste for coffee.

But here I was, stuck in this cafe that had the nerve to only sell coffee. My friend was so excited about finding this new place that I couldn't bring myself to tell her I hated coffee. (What are friendships for if not to lie and hide our true selves from those we call friends?) And besides, sometimes it's good to step out of your comfort zone and force yourself to drink a bitter beverage that you have tried at least a hundred times before in a hundred different variations with the hopes that this time you will actually like it.

I got to the counter and panicked. I had no idea what to order so I gave it the old, "I'll have what she's having." We sat down and my friend started drinking. I gave my coffee a tentative sip and to my surprise it wasn't completely horrible. I matched my friend sip for sip as we caught up and before I knew it, we had been there an hour and my coffee cup was completely empty.

I guess I wasn't ready for the amount of caffeine in that little cup of coffee because as I drove home, I felt my pulse quicken and I swear my heart was about to beat right out of my chest. My eyes kept darting back and forth uncontrollably and I felt nervous like right before you go into the dentist's office and you haven't flossed in a month or two.

I got home and spent the next four hours cooking a week's worth of meals, reading all about the Panama Canal while jogging in place, and making a few dozens calls to my husband insisting that I was having a heart attack.

"You're not having a heart attack, honey," my husband tried to assure me.

"Yes, I am. Hey, did you know it takes 20 to 30 hours to get through the Panama Canal? But it only takes me 30 seconds to run through the entire house. Oh, and we are having spaghetti and meatloaf for dinner. Unless you want tacos, because I made those, too."

"Goodbye, dear," he said completely dismissing the obvious signs of the myocardial infarction I was displaying.

The next time we meet up for coffee, it's going to be at a bar. Because I'm pretty sure I could have handled tequila shots better than I handled that cup of coffee.

- Brandi Haas

Brandi Haas is slightly neurotic and extremely sarcastic and loves writing about her adventures in the suburbs. She writes a blog, Tales from Suburbia, and has published her first book, Tales from Suburbia: You Don't Have to be Crazy to Live Here, But it Helps. It's a collection of hilarious stories about surviving motherhood.