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January 12, 2006

Espresso, Diet Pepsi, and Coffeehouse Pretention

I admit, I'm not much of a coffee drinker. I remember the only coffee I really ever cared for was the coffee my Nana used to make for me when I would stay at her house as a teenager. She would basically take a half-spoonful of actual coffee and then load the rest of the drink with full-fat milk and about a pound-and-a-half of sugar. She would call it "Sweet Coffee."

Boy, did I ever love "sweet coffee!" Looking back, it's probably things like "sweet coffee" that contributed to the fact that I was a 200-pound twelve-year-old.

But, now, I don't have much room for "real" coffee. You know, the bitter stuff, and the pitch black beans called "expresso."

I've never much seen the point in "aquiring a taste" for something. Why should I fight my internal gagging to learn to "aquire a taste" for a "Semi-sweet white chocolate double-shot machiato chai latte with a hint of Java-chip"? Just so I can appear to be as semi-sweetly sophisticated as the Buddy Holly look-a-like with checkered pants and a beanie that says "Flick" over in the corner? You know the guy who has strategically placed his 15" Powerbook in the very center of the corner table so as to suddenly make everyone passing by on the downtown street glance over and say, "God, I wish that was me!"

This is the problem I've had with sushi, beer, and "One Tree Hill." What is it with the need to keep fighting your intestines just so you can be one with 2006 corporate American consumerism?

Now, that said, this next free-flowing piece of blogosphere is going to seem very hypocritical.

I don't drink coffee. In fact, when in Starbucks, you will usually see me adding a cushy pad to my already pudgy midsection by filling up on Vanilla Creme Frappuccino's and Diet Pepsi (which doesn't add the cushy pad, but doesn't really help to take it away either).

However, I DO love coffeehouses! And I LOVE the smell of coffee. There is something oddly sophisticated about a human being JUST BECAUSE he/she is sitting beneath the dimly-lit lampshade with the lovely whir of expresso brewing in the center of the room. The couches, the endless laptops surging through the world-wide-web on a WiFi hotspot, the four-foot tall mohawk that looks like Dracula hanging out next to the Women's Bathroom.

It's sophisticated and yet just pretentious enough that I feel like my life has more value just because I'm there. Actually, I am sitting in a coffeehouse right now, drinking a Strawberry Italian Soda. It's better sounding than a Diet Pepsi, and yet I can't get anybody to notice the bright lights of my laptop!

Oh well. It's probably because it's a Dell.

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