I’d like to take a moment to thank my one true love, the Usher to my Alicia Keys, the only entity that has never let me down, a hand to my heart for the glorious and ever so perfect coffee.
If you have coffee, and you’re looking for someone to share it with, here I am. I think that if a man dressed in a black robe and a creepy mask from that movie, “The Purge,” walked into my job holding a plastic cereal container filled with black sludge-like coffee which he exclaimed was, “specially made for me,” I’d drink it. I’d drink a lot of it. I’d freeze it and save some for the remaining days of the week. I’ll take the caffeinated goodness anyway I can get it.
I originally began to appreciate coffee for the Jesus-nectar that coffee is when I began student teaching my last semester at my undergraduate school. Now, I use coffee as a means of getting through the day, especially whenever I’m working at the yogurt shop. You can only listen to so many 18-year-old polo-playing Harvard University students advise you on how to angle the caramel drizzle onto their $8 waffle before you find yourself longing for a large coffee or asking said student to stab you with the ends of one of the shiny, yellow spoons.
The yogurt institution I work at is right next to two life-sources, the liquor store (my roommate says it’s bad that the owner recognizes me but hey, we’re pals!) and a coffee shop (they gave me a large, large cup of water after I decided to share an entire bottle of knock-off Fireball with my coworkers the night before, because you know pseudo-Fireball is always a solid decision). Also, it’s either I incessantly drink coffee, or I nervously eat Reese’s peanut butter cups and gain another 20 pounds, and I had to spend $60 on my last Weight Watchers membership, and it YELLED at me the last time I didn’t meet my weekly goal. Dank.
When I get up in the morning, I have the approachability and optimism of a cactus. I want absolutely nothing to do with any of you. My ideal morning would be waking up and having Rihanna sitting in my kitchen with two full coffee pots (one for her, one for me) telling me that she’s ready for us to begin our day of binge-watching “Gilmore Girls,” among other best friend activities. This instance is yet to occur, so I usually make 2 to 4 cups of coffee, and then I grace my classmates and yogurt-consumers with my ever-present bubbly being.
One hundred million coffee-drinkers — my people — are anxiously running their caffeinated bodies through the United States. Apparently, the average coffee drinker spends about $164.71 on coffee each year. Forbes released an article in 2011 about how much money people probably spend on coffee in their careers, and I was like BYE (I just looked it up. It’s $14,000. I’ve gone and filed this among all the other things I refuse to deal with in my mental “emotionally-paralyzing stuff” folder).
Only 54 percent of Americans drink coffee each day. Let me respectfully state to the other 46 percent, y’all are tripping!! Don’t deny yourself the beauty of that cup of coffee. This country also spends about $4 billion importing coffee, and I’m probably responsible for pumping one-fourth of that money back into the economy, so like, you’re welcome, Barack Obama.
According to WebMD, the website that convinces you that your cough is stage four feline conjunctivitis, research shows that coffee has a bunch of health benefits. Avid coffee-drinkers (versus non coffee-drinkers) are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Coffee drinkers also have fewer heart rhythm problems and strokes, which is good, because I don’t know a lot of people who like either of those things.
You know the kind of people, your pals or family members, who go for a seven-mile runs at 5 a.m. and are like, “I WOKE UP WITH MATT LAUER THIS MORNING!” Not me. Not even kind of me. I’m pretty sure I was the kid in preschool who attempted to chain herself to the blue-mesh nap cot with Lisa Frank bracelets. I need coffee to get on the level of you perky, normally pleasant people.
One day at work, I sat in a cheesecake. That is a true story. I used to be the baker of our homemade toppings. I had five pans of cheesecake placed in random areas, and I was tired and just went to sit…and then it happened. Maybe if I would have had some extra coffee that day, this tragedy could have been avoided. So let’s all consider having a cup of coffee in the morning, to wake up our indifferent existences. Happy drinking!
