Saturday, March 07, 2009

my last barista was a prophet.

I just got back from a ladies’ event at my church—a fun time, but it had an early start. So after lunch, I did something I once promised myself I would never do: I actually sought out church-basement coffee.

Ever since first smelling church coffee, I knew I’d never drink any. I was in seventh grade, and it was before my conversion to coffee, but even I could tell that this wasn’t the good stuff. Church-basement coffee smells more like shoes and tiles and pipework, less like something you should drink. More Boiler Room, less Bean of Earth. I would look at the people drinking it, and wonder if they had any tastebuds left to rebel against it. I didn’t want to become one of them…

But today, I had no choice. My younger sister was presenting a talk at an afternoon session, and I wasn’t going to doze off while she was speaking.

Pushed to my limits and blinking sleepily, I groped my way over to the brown folding table in the corner. The man behind it leaned forward. “Regular or decaf?”

For the love of goodness, it had better have caffeine. “Regular, please!”

He lifted the Styrofoam cup full of brown liquid. “Last cup,” he said darkly. At the time, I thought he meant the last cup of regular coffee.

After tasting it, I knew better: he doubted I would survive.—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 03/07 at 05:41 PM
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