(Repost: Originally posted Aug 17th, 2010 – What can I say, I like this one.)
I started drinking coffee at the age of six, not because my parents were irresponsible—they were in fact better people than I can ever hope to become—but because I spent an unusual amount of time in the company of coffee drinkers. Both of my parents were recovering Alcoholics, (You are always recovering by the way) and both committed large portions of their lives to helping others cope with their disease.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s AA meetings had two very distinctive elements: cigarette smoke as thick as a London fog and coffee brewed endlessly in the largest attainable brewing device within driving distance. While I am sure that the pall of smoke has today been relegated to a nearby alcove or outdoor “designated” smoking area, I suspect the coffee still runs like the bulls at Pamplona—every day of the year. And apparently, the best way to fend off the contact buzz from the Stygian gloom of a nicotine cloud is to drink coffee in tiny foam cups with red plastic stirs that poke your fore-head as you try to slurp up the coffee flavored sugar ooze in the bottom.
My father insisted up until his dying day that what he gave me (when I was but a wee lad) was coffee flavored milk with sugar. Translated thusly, it was supposed to be milk with some sugar, and enough coffee to be convincing to a 6 year old. That’s almost like frosting. (You do that now and child and family services will come and take your children away.) So how could real coffee compete with that? Easy, just add more coffee, more milk and more sugar. That would explain the hyperactivity I experienced as a child, one that today would have probably had me chewing Ritalin like PEZ candy from Batman’s prescription-bottle tilt-back head. (Or maybe Lorazapam arranged like dot-candy in rows of three that you can just chew off a paper ribbon.) Luckily for me life has been unusually kind in that respect. When I was a hyperactive child that behavior was often identified as “boys-being-boys” the prescription for which was playing outside until it got too dark to see—and maybe then some; cheaper and effective without the negative side effects from abruptly discontinuing treatment.
Not too many years before that, history paid me another kind gesture by ensuring that legalized abortion was not yet a constitutional right –allowing my then un-wed mother the choice of putting me up for adoption (instead of the other “choice”) so that I could be loved by coffee drinking, recovering alcoholics, who turned out to be great parents no matter what I said during my teenage years. And while they are gone I still like my coffee light and add the sugar with a back-hoe.
But there’s a catch. I drink coffee because I love it but also because I need it. It keeps me alert through my average work day, and is probably the ruin of my lousy 5 hours of sleep each night, requiring me to drink more coffee to get through the next work day. Sure, they have five hour energy, but screw that. That’s what three-bucks a shot? What did a liberal think of that? A pot of coffee is hours of inexpensive energy in a convenient 60 oz decanter, readily available and in abundance.
And who the hell has a conversation over a 2 oz shot of 5-hour energy. A 2 oz shot of Jack Daniels maybe, but that’s for a completely different kind of “2:30 feeling” one for which some counseling is actually recommended.
But maybe I do need coffee counseling. Drinking the stuff is something of a vicious self-fulfilling cycle of dependency. ‘I drink coffee so I can stay awake at work, so I can make more money to buy more coffee…’ It’s like that anti-cocaine add in the 80’s. I take cocaine so I can work harder to make more money to buy more cocaine. But coffee is cheaper, cheaper than 5-hour energy if you make your own. And who sells their belongings to buy a pound of Folgers? But it is a weakness not a vice–maybe just a guilty pleasure; so someone has to take responsibility for it and it doesn’t necessarily have to be me.
Seeing as we’ve achieved the progressive pinnacle of irresponsibility—where finger pointing is en vogue and other people are always more likely to blame–I figured I’d flirt with the idea of blaming someone else for my coffee addiction. My parents have long since passed away—and they were really only victims themselves–so I’ve settled on that beverage-soul possessing Juan Valdez and his little coffee-bean burdened-burro who have pushers all over the world disguised as friendly gum chewing truck-stop waitresses, smiling pierced and pimply counter staff, drive thru attendants whose worn fingerless gloves deliver steaming cups of joy on a dark cold New England morning, and the Barista’s at Bean pushing bistros, corner café’s, and franchise functionaries that sprout like weeds all across the fruited plain. Depending on which way I drive to work I can travel past four Dunkin Donuts, a Starbucks, and about a dozen corner varieties or service stations all dispensing java en masse (in a variety of sizes and flavors) and it’s only a 15 minute drive. I’m telling you, Juan Valdez is the Anti-Christ.
Look what he did to the cradle of liberty.
New Englanders were uptight before Dunkin’ Donuts appeared—just think Lexington and Concord, or the original Tea party—which might be why they now drink coffee; they tossed all the tea into the harbor. A few centuries removed and Dunkin Donuts are the Kudzu of the New England retail landscape, appearing with a prevalence matched only by liquor stores in Florida, and the descendants of liberty are nanny state busy bodies living in the cradle of tax and spend liberalism. Could it be the coffee? (D)unkin (D)ounts does have two (D)’s in it.
That would explain the ‘Coffee Party’ which unlike Dunkin Donuts, is something of a failure. But failure was imminent. The coffee party was a beverage whored out to chase after waning political relevance. The tea Party was a philosophy about small government based on the principals behind an historical event. And you don’t have to drink tea, coffee works just as well because the principles remain the same regardless of the beverage or the century.
So Loving Dunkin Donuts or coffee in general is no sin. It’s good, real good. Addiction thy name is Great One extra cream, extra sugar. I don’t even need a donut with a drink like that. It is a donut. And a coffee flavored one at that. Pour some in your instant oatmeal, and mix it up with that red plastic stir (without fear of marking up your fore-head like some heroine addict injecting into the furrows of their brow–unless you try to slurp the last of it out of the bowl.
And Coffee doesn’t make me uptight—or maybe drinking it for over 40 years has made it impossible for me to know the difference—I’d be willing to consider that; as long as I can consider it over coffee. Speaking of which, my mug is empty and a little apparition of Juan Valdez and his burro just appeared on my shoulder. The coffee pot beckons, and I must answer the call.
