A Cup of Joe

I’ve received many things from students over the years that I have held onto. Like the cards on my desk for example, to remind me on a bad day that I used to have students that liked me. Or red pens. They were great, perhaps a commentary on the amount of red ink I had used on his essays. Bookmarks, magnets, earrings…

There are three, however, that remind me that my past students will always remember me for something that my current students won’t remember me for. The first, a pound of Colombian coffee. It was gone in a second. The second, a travel mug singed by my whole class. I am holding it in so many pictures in the following months that one could have though it an appendage rather than a gift. The third—and perhaps most illustrative of my relationship to my liquid gold—is a pin which depicts people bowing to a giant coffee cup. “Coffee is god” it declares.

That’s how I felt too. I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I’d do is put on a pot of coffee. Once I got to school, I’d have another, another with lunch, iced if it was hot out, and sometimes yet another in the afternoon (without which, the students in my afternoon classes were to be pitied).

And my students knew to look for the Starbucks cup. If I walked in without it, they’d ask why. If I hadn’t already had some, they’d offer to go get it for me. So afraid were they of the decaffeinated version of me. I should have been too. I was a real beast without it. We all have our vices, right?

Because of my great love of java, I happen to be quite particular about the way I take it—cream, no sugar. And so recently, after giving up dairy, I went in search of a soy substitute. Let me say here—for all you soy consumers—that I am a big fan of soy. Beans, milk, sauce. Healthy, animal friendly, what’s not to like? So I thought, soy creamer—awesome. With high hopes, I put on a fresh pot of Joe, poured in the milk-like substance and…

It tasted like a sock.

And so, that's how I gave up coffee. I tortured everyone around me for two full weeks as my body withdrew from 15 years of 3 cups a day coffee consumption. And I switched to tea. Sellout.

Don’t congratulate me though. The minute they make a soy creamer that doesn’t make my coffee taste like it was brewed in a gym bag, I’ll be the first one to buy it in stock. However, maybe by then I won’t even like coffee anymore.

Who am I kidding?