I have a love/hate relationship with coffee.
What is it about this dark, bitter liquid that is so appealing that we humans see fit to dump it down our throats daily and even go so far as to create meccas of worship where the entire theme centers around crafting and enjoying said hot beverage? Starbucks had might as well be renamed “The Universalist Church of the Roasted Bean”. Where else can you get steaming-hot acceptance and salvation ground and shot into a mug, complete with toppings, for $3.95? Even the wine at the Last Supper had to be pricier and didn’t perk you up nearly as much (given the sleepiness at Gethsemane).
I am blessed with the stomach of a jellyfish thanks to my mother’s side of the family which means, essentially, that drinking coffee on a regular basis when I am under any sort of stress, lack of sleep, or other pressure renders it into a self-mutilating battlefield of terror upon slugging down a cup of brew. I can partake of the feast but the entrées come back with a vengeance. There’s simply no lasting forgiveness in coffee for my internal organs.
But how can I resist? The sheer smell of it wafting off the aisles at the grocery store or that first whiff from a freshly opened bag or container of beans is close enough to orgasm that they should make scented bedsheets available and offer little towelettes in the lid of every can. The welcome mat just inside the door of area coffee shops isn’t for your feet, its for your knees so you don’t bruise them upon entering and dropping from the sheer ecstasy of it. Juan Valdez is so much my personal Jenna Jamison.
The atmosphere of coffee houses is also terribly welcoming and comfortable, the sort of area everyone wants in their own house and never quite seems to achieve no matter how many times you browse BH&G. The smells, the lighting, the sounds — even the jackass with the cell phone in the corner is whispering in soft tones. Every time I find myself in a place like this I can feel the tendrils growing out of my butt cheeks, seeking a way to keep me rooted to the soft leather couch and become a permanent fixture in this Eden of Brew.
Of course, good coffee now exists outside of the commercial experience, if you’re lucky, which isn’t always the case around here.
My roommates in college introduced me to “9-scoop” coffee, which pretty much consisted of filling the filter of a standard 12-cup machine to the brim with Maxwell House French Roast and then sending some of Decorah’s finest calcium-enriched water through it. This resulted in a liquid looking close to hot tar, strong enough to permanently etch stainless steel spoons, and smelling of the aftershave of God himself. It was both an eye-opener and a hangover-chaser and did double duty as both morning beverage and breakfast. You left the dorm room floating a few inches above the pavement, no matter what the day had in store for you.
Nowadays, trying to emulate that concoction sends my innards into mutiny and they usually take my pancreas as a hostage.
The City of Sheffield got new signs for the light poles on main street. In theory, this is a good idea. They even say, “Welcome to Sheffield” on them, which is wonderful and peachy. The problem is the graphic, which depicts a steaming cup of joe.
There is no coffee in this town, I assure you.
Well, ok, so there’s coffee at the Sheffield Inn, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that “coffee”, per se. It is a hot tan liquid
dispensed from a large silver urn which may or may not have any sort of ground up substance within it that may or may not have started life out as a bean growing on a tree in some remote country of South America. If it did, it was at least a decade ago, now so processed that you’d never associate it with the original product.
This coffee isn’t weak; it’s helpless.
So, it’s a bit of misadvertisement — no, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today. Or tomorrow. And if we did, the old folk would run us out of town declaring that they were pornographic or satanic or simply Democrat. Take your pick.
Nearest place to here to get a cup of hot loving is Hampton at a craft shop named, “Merry Bee’s”, which I refuse to go into out of principle. Second closest is a place called “Jitters” in Mason City which, by the time I get up there, is always closed. What? Nobody wants caffeine after 5:30? I’m up till 1:00am most nights — who’s going to thump my heart back into beat?
Living in the middle of nowhere is definitely a disadvantage, especially when your recreational drug of choice is sadly deformed.
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