Coffee

I drink coffee. Lots of people do. Lots of people drink coffee because coffee is a pretty fantastic beverage. Hot and cold. Espresso. Nitro. Light and sweet or black. The options within that wonderful drink are plentiful, and you can get it anywhere these days. From the locally roasted beans to gas station swill, coffee is something that has become ubiquitous to the American morning routine.

Enough coffee is sold in this country that the industry is worth billions over several major chains. With the advent of COVID-19, going to a coffee shop and getting a drink has been one of those things that I, personally, have missed greatly. I like going in, seeing someone I've seen a hundred times, who knows what I want, and getting out of there without any fuss.

I miss going to the coffee shop.

I had to go to a warehouse about an hour away to pick up an order for my store. The customer pick up option is pretty fantastic, as a small business doesn't have to spend extra money on shipping. So I go up a few times a month to get stuff, and occasionally I am a little tired. The humming of tires on the road, gentle bumping, and banal scenery of Rhode Island can make "a little tired" into "a little dangerously doze offy" and nobody wants to be that.

So I stopped at a major coffee chain to get some caffeine into my system and drive safely. It wasn't the New England based one with the coffee that tastes like burning and lack of options, but the other one, the one from Seattle. This is important.

Adhering to social distancing guidelines, I wait my turn. Social distancing isn't a problem for me, mainly because I don't want to be near another person anyway, so this is a golden era for strangers staying the hell away from me. Eventually I get up to the Plexiglas barricaded register, and behind my mask, I order.

"Biggest iced coffee you have. Black," I said. I drink my coffee black, regardless of temperature.
"What?" said the masked barista.
"Iced coffee, black."
"Black?" She looked at me as if I had asked for something weird.
"Yup."
"Okay? Name?"

Then came the 3 minute conversation behind masks and Plexiglas about my name and how to properly spell it. I didn't have the heart to explain the correct spelling a 5th time, so I just let it go.

Adhering to social distancing guidelines, I awaited my probably messed up order. Eventually another young barista calls out "ICED COFFEE BLACK...black? What?" She turned to the first child who took the order "Really, black?"

I walk up take my drink and leave without saying a word.

Listen, I know that we have gotten to a place where people like to flavor their coffee. I like the flavor of coffee, so I drink it like a normal person does. Coffee flavored coffee. What a revelation to those people. I noticed as I was leaving that they were eyeing the flavor syrups behind them.

Those pumps of diabetes gravy can kick rocks. I will never, NEVER take a quarter cup of gooey fake almond glop or a half cup of foam on top of my drink.

I'm the normal one, yet they looked at me as if I asked them to Irish it up with some Bailey's and whiskey. I didn't ask to have my coffee in a bowl so I can lap it up like a dog. I didn't ask for a specific amount of ice cubes, or if they could give it to me upside down. I didn't ask for anything weird. Just a black coffee over ice. How is this strange? How am I the weird customer of the day.

I'm not making any kind of statement, I'm just saying that the state of drinking drinks in this society has gone to shit. Black coffee shouldn't be this complicated.

Unless it's terrible diner coffee, then a little sugar is okay to mask the overpowering charred flavor profile and generally lava-esque mouthfeel.

And after all of it, the second one didn't even call out my name.

Probably because it was spelled wrong.

-SD