Kicking and Screaming
[sometimes, the only way to get me to go to work]
Benjamin Kissell
"Steady work, he says. Visible position he says. Yeah, mother f$#@er - holding up this newspaper sure is steady work."
Some days are wonderful; full of light, giggles, smiles, rainbows flying out of unicorn asses and puppies rolling in fields of kittens ... while others are known as "work days". On these "work days" [*shudder*] it requires a little more than my usual 'roll out of bed and wake up to the sound of birds and mice singing a Cinderella chorus' to get me ready to face the day with anything other than a tight-mouthed grimace. I have to be dragged, kicking and screaming to face the day.
What is required is a combination of denial ["What, me work-y?"] and coffee to perform this.
No. I'm not talking that light, cinnamon-dusted, pleasantly flavored, ooh-the-barista-thinks-I'm-cute-'cos-he-put-extra-skim-whip-foam-on-the-top, stuff that your mother and the hipster behind the counter drink. No. I'm talking the black, industrial-vat sludge that MY mother would approve of - coffee strong enough to both dissolve asphalt AND be confused for it. Coffee so bitter and black that you could call it "Gary Coleman, the later years" [what, too soon? Oh come on, Avenue Q did it].
................................................
I began my love affair with work-based-coffee at 20, sneaking a clandestine liaison with a cup of "artisan coffee"; light tappings of French Vanilla non-dairy creamer liberally swirled in - I was unfaithful to my relationship with my expensive beakers of tea. I needed that extra jolt of caffeine that my blackberry and currant blend wasn't providing that day - a double-shift at work on top of classes in college. I snuck around the counter, eyes casting around to make sure no one saw my secret shame, and poured out a nutmeg-gy cup of coffee.
From that first cup of adulterated java, I was hooked.
A bottomless cup - one that mean it could never be full? Were there 50 Danaides continuously filling it
from sieved vessels? Don't get me wrong tho', the idea of a bottomless cup of coffee appeals to me
in ways that are prolly illegal, if not outright immoral.
I'd loved the smell of coffee brewing at home growing up - it's a rare day that my Mum doesn't have a pot brewing, whether at work or home. But something still felt wrong - not necessarily the splitting of my love [I'll always love tea - I have a whole cabinet in my kitchen devoted to flavors of tea and my special tea-only mugs] ... one could call me a big-a-drink-ist? No. It was the flavor. Specifically, that it had one. I remembered looking up, as a child, at my Mum's mini-poster at work of Garfield and a killer cup of joe so strong it dissolved the spoon.
That coffee, right there, was what I wanted. What I needed. That concoction is what grown-ups drank by the tankard, by the gallon; what kept my professors, co-workers and family running and alive. And perky.
Or pseudo-perky enough [i.e. scary enough] not to be second-guessed.
The following years saw me drinking more and more coffee to survive work days and school. I'd slink through the Student Union - The Eagle's Nest - and stand in front of the college's massive coffee-by-the-gallon maker and breathe in the fumes knowing that this 'industrial sludge' was the concoction I desired - nay, needed - to make it through the days. Not the lovely and Starbucks-y coffee the hip and uber-cool kids chugged. Screw that. I wanted the stiff stuff. Strong fumes would waft out of my various travel mugs; whether sitting in class or at a corporate job, my days at Borders, or at home writing with evil cats nicknamed 'Bitch Pudding' scratching at my desk chair.
Coffee which looks like Hexxus clawing its way from my cup is what I craved and what still pulls me out of bed in the mornings so that I may smile my way through a myriad of obstacles
... better known as co-workers and customers.
IF YOU DON'T GET THIS REFERENCE, please go kick yourself ...
close enough to someone who was alive and cogniscent during the 90's. 'Kay?
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