I had my very first cup of coffee on the morning of my 13th birthday. The rule in the Dunnevant house was no coffee until you became a teenager. So, I saddled up to the breakfast table and watched Mom pour me a cup from the silver percolator coffee pot that looked like this.
I loved the smell, and had long looked forward to becoming like my dad and taking mine...black. That first sip was one of the most profound disappointments of my short life. Of course, I wasn’t about to let my mother know. I finished that first dreadful cup in what, up until that time, was the single bravest act of my life. As I drank I remember thinking, Are you kidding me? This stuff is horrible! How do they stand to drink this every single morning of their lives?? It was the first time I entertained the prospect that grownups might not, in fact, be very smart after all. Of course, eventually I grew to love coffee, but the evolution hit another snag before beginning in earnest.
A couple years later I was spending the weekend with some friends. Saturday morning, I gathered around the breakfast table with my buddies and watched one of their Moms plop one of these on the table in front of me...
Ahh yes, I was about to discover that the only thing worse than percolator coffee was instant coffee. But, following the lead of my friends, I spiked it with cream and a teaspoon of sugar, which served the purpose of helping me stave off the embarrassment of not finishing the stuff.
But, then came my college years and this...
These were the years of 4 hours of sleep a night, if I was lucky. The warehouse where I worked had this stuff next to a tea pot with scalding hot water and styrofoam cups. After a couple hours of building wooden pallets I would pour my first cup...cream, no sugar. At quitting time I poured another and drank it while driving home to fortify me for a long night of studying. I was ignorant. I didn’t know any better. Then I met Ron Roop, my sister’s new boyfriend, who introduced me to this...
It was my road to Damascus moment. The scales fell from my eyes. I discovered that coffee came from actual coffee beans, and not freeze-dried crystals!! My first cup of freshly ground coffee was something called Kona, and I was transported to a whole new world. The rest is history.
I bring all of this up because of a recent trip I made into that great symbol of consumer excess...Starbucks. The only time I ever go there is to buy one of those fancy coffee drinks for my wife and her teacher friends. There’s a Starbucks right up the street from where she works, so recently I went in to pick up something for her. Usually I order whatever the featured special is, for one simple reason—there is a brief description of what it actually is. But on this day, there were no specials, so there I was scanning the menu boards trying to make sense of the smorgasbord of ridiculousness that was before me. Because Pam and I both are on something resembling a diet, I decided to go with something that had the words non-fat in the description. Later, I discovered that whatever it was I bought her was positively dreadful. It was the thought that counted.
But it got me to thinking. How in the name of all that is holy did we get from this...
To THIS...
...in fifty years? Progress? Marketing? Capitalism? Or just simple addiction?
Think about it...while I go pour a cup.
No comments:
Post a Comment