“Too much coffee, man.”
The Old Man in the Hat
Okay. They say confession is good for the soul. No matter how embarrassing. I am unsure as to how revealing ones most intimate and sensitive personal proclivities to a public audience raises one up to become a shining light for those who come after. But, here goes. I DON’T DRINK COFFEE! There it is. I feel better already. Almost unCanadian. Surely, at the very least, a societal pariah. But I don’t care. I DON’T DRINK COFFEE!
What deep emotional events resulted in this anomaly? Was it that truck stop coffee when I was but a youth, served at near thermonuclear temperature, and so alarmingly viscous that you could stand a stirring stick in? Was it the fact that people of my tender years doused their smouldering cigarettes in the black cold remainder in their white foam cups? Yuk. Who could drink this stuff?
Come on. Admit it. You agree. These people who have to have a coffee break. Give me a break. You mean goof off break. Doughnut break. Call your girlfriend break. Coffee is just an excuse to stand around and waste time. And then, of course, a pee break. Sure, if you didn’t swill 32 ounces of that disgusting stuff, you wouldn’t have to stop every 10 minutes for a tinkle break. Coffee is the single most serious threat to the productivity of the Canadian economy. Instead of prohibiting strikes at Air Canada and Canada Post, Harper should ban coffee. Production up 100 percent. There would be so much tax money pouring in we could even have Unemployment Insurance again. The national debt could be paid off in weeks. Case closed.
What, you may ask, sent me off on the path of self confession? In a word, an empty disposable coffee cup. An empty cup lying next to the side of the bank. An empty cup on the shelf last week at the grocery store. Everywhere I look, empty cups. Everywhere except the trash bin. Perhaps we need a deposit on disposable coffee cups. It seems to have worked well for beer and pop bottles. Even the neanderthals who continue to throw these items out the window make work for entrepreneurial individuals who scour the roadside to collect and recycle. Not so with empty coffee cups. They are everywhere, discarded waste. Don’t even get me started on all the gas wasted at a drive thru. I mean, does drinking coffee make you oblivious to climate change? Just one more reason to outlaw coffee!
In the interest of full public disclosure, when criticizing society’s faults, one has an obligation to provide an alternative. A substitute of culture and refinement. Sophistication and appreciation. A beverage sublime and invigorating. An infusion consumed in the very finest, thinnest porcelain. Rather than a break, I take time. TEA TIME. Bring on the blueberry pie!
