I was getting coffee this one morning and the guy says, “Milk and sugar?” And I’m thinking, “Oh, I always get stupid ‘milk and sugar’.” You know? “Always the same thing every single day. Why don’t I try something new?”
So I asked, “D’you have anything back there I can put in there besides milk and sugar?”
And he said, “No. No, we don’t.”
And I looked around behind him and I said, “Come on. I’m lookin’ around behind you, and I’m seein’ a lot of things. Now all I’m saying is let’s put one or two of those things in my coffee instead of stupid old boring lame-ass have-it-every-day milk and stupid sugar? OK?”
So he messed around back there for a while, and I think he talked to some other guy in the back, maybe like his manager or something. I don’t know. I was too excited about the prospect of the new experience that lay before me. I was, in a few moments, about to have my coffee in a way I’d never had before. I was like Columbus. Like Galileo. Like…Steve Jobs. I mean, if you sort of magnify what Steve Jobs did for the computer industry.
So he eventually came back with the coffee; I paid; I raised the cup high. I wanted to shout out that cool Latin thing that means “seize the day”, but I couldn’t think of it, so I just said something that sounded Latin-y.
“Anno gemini!” I yelped, and I downed that sucker in one gulp.
And the next day, as I lay in bed at the hospital, I reflected on the three things I had learned:
- I learned that I didn’t like my coffee prepared with salt and bleach.
- I learned that having your stomach pumped is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. And it doesn’t even really sound that glamorous, so really what I’m saying here is: it’s horribly terrible.
- I learned that I should never try anything new ever, ever.
So I must be off, to go get the same groceries I get each week, from the same store, at the same time on the same day. I gotta get it done in fifty-five minutes, so I can get home in time to watch the same TV show I watch every week, and then off to bed at 11:24!
Oh, I’m sure this all sounds boring to you. And it is. But…it’s better than swallowing lots of bleach. And that’s what gets me through each day.