Truth in advertising

Here's what it should say on the vacuum-sealed, tightly packed foil pouch that encases my LavAzza coffee:

"To Open: Please consult surgeon, welder or other professional. Do not attempt to open while sleepy or caffeine-deprived."

Extra points: Doesn't "LavAzza" look like Italian for "wash one's hindquarters?"

Jittery with a java jones

In summer, when temperatures are as sultry as a debutante full of sloe gin, nothing’s more refreshing than a hot cup of coffee.

You heard me. Coffee. Give me coffee, no matter what the weather. First thing out of bed every morning, rain or shine, steamy or snowy. Coffee. I gotta have it.

I’ve got a caffeine addiction that won’t quit, and I’m not the only one. The whole country’s got the coffee jitters. How else to explain the sprouting of drive-thru coffee joints on every vacant corner in North America? No wonder all the bad drivers are on the phone, talking really fast. They’re all juked on java.

In some places, you don’t even have to cross the street to get coffee. Winter before last, I found myself in midtown Manhattan on a Sunday morning, the one quiet time of the week. Everyone was still in bed, but not me, because I don’t sleep in hotels anymore, especially in New York, where honking is acceptable behavior at 3 a.m. So I’m up, and I visit the Starbucks in the hotel lobby and I go out for a walk. It’s cold, but dry, and I walk briskly and I’ve got my paper coffee cup to warm my hands. Most all the businesses are closed, but up on the corner, there’s another Starbucks, all lit up and warm. Across the street and down the block, another Starbucks. I walked around Grand Central Station before I ended up back at the hotel. In those 12 blocks, nine Starbucks.

At its current rate of growth (and allowing for recent closures), Starbucks will, by 2032, have crowded an outlet into every home in America. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to having my own barista.

My java jones is so bad, I select hotels on the basis of whether they have coffeemakers in the rooms, so I can get an initial fix before dressing in the morning. Those little machines never make coffee exactly how you want it, which is intravenously, at bedside.

At our house, we’ve got the fastest coffeemaker on the market; I can barely finish yawning and scratching before it’s ready.

I start downing coffee at dawn, and I drink it right through lunchtime, or until I get so jittery that I burst into flames, whichever comes first.

Worse yet, I use an embarrassing amount of sugar and/or artificial sweetener, so the coffee has the overall sweetness and slightly chewy texture of molasses.

No cream, though. That’s for sissies.

And none of those fancy coffees for me, those lattes and cappuccinos and mochachokas and frappagrappas. I’m sure they’re very tasty, but I freeze up, trying to decipher the menu, where many of the words appeared to be Italian and nothing is “small” or “medium.” I mutter, “Coffee,” and take whatever they give me and pour in an embarrassing amount of sugar, and I’m out of there.

It’s probably not healthy to consume six to eight cups of coffee per day, or maybe it is, depending upon which study came out last. Coffee either prevented colon cancer or caused heavy users to grow antlers. I forget.

It doesn’t matter what the doctors say. I’m sticking with coffee. I’ve given up nearly all my other bad habits. I’ve got to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

They can have my thermal mug when they pry it out of my cold, lifeless hand. Which could be any minute now.

Barista!

Taxed by life's spills

To: Commissioner B. Gordon Hufshutz
Internal Revenue Service
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir:

I write seeking an extension on the filing deadline on my family’s personal income taxes. I had every intention of getting our tax return done on time, but Life interfered, and I’m afraid meeting the deadline is now impossible.

I had the best of intentions. I set aside a day, well ahead of April 15, to do the IRS paperwork for my home-based business. I woke early that day, put on my workout togs and prepared to get pumped up for a day of tax preparation. I paused in the kitchen for coffee, and was stricken by a series of calamitous events that distracted me from my taxpayer duties and ruined my whole morning.

It went like this:

I filled my giant thermal cup with coffee, then lifted the sleek Art Deco sugar canister to bring it closer so I could dump in my usual embarrassing amount of sugar. Some idiot (me, I think, after my previous cup) had left the screw-on lid loose, and the glass canister slipped from my hand. I tried to catch it, but the lid had come off in my hand, so my hand was full. Instead of catching the sugar canister, I clubbed it through the air. A plume of sugar flew across the room before the clear canister hit the tile floor and shattered into an estimated 4,703 shards of sugar-frosted glass.

Meanwhile, my elbow was busy knocking over my giant thermal mug.

Coffee cascaded along the countertop and off into the floor, where it mingled with the spilled sugar and instantly formed a slick glaze studded with broken glass.

I am ashamed to say that I screamed curse words at this point in the sequence of events, but a man can only take so much.

My wife came to my rescue. We moved electrical appliances out of harm’s way and began to clean up the coffee and the sugar and the glass. It was a big job. Getting sugar-glaze wet simply spreads it around. The floor gets stickier and stickier, until it’s like flypaper. It took half a roll of paper towels, two sweepings, several swabbings, one domestic dispute and 14 moppings, but after a mere four hours, the extremely clean floor was no longer hazardous to bare feet. Also, you could walk across it without squeaking.

After such a harrowing event, there was no way I could concentrate on tax paperwork. I’d already lost half a workday, and I spent the other half on the sofa, recovering from the trauma with doses of chocolate and Sportscenter.

My work schedule never recovered, and I remain behind on my business and household paperwork to this day. A six-month extension should give me time to locate all my receipts and file my tax return, assuming there isn’t another major spill around here.

Coffee and sugar and broken glass, all at the same time. Surely, Mr. Commissioner, such a “perfect storm” of spillage qualifies as an Act of God and should excuse my family from the April 15 deadline for tax filing.

I blame the sugar canister, which was destroyed in the incident and thereby duly punished. But please do not penalize us.

Thank you for understanding.

Sincerely,
Steve

Dialing for coffee

The scene: Early summer morning. One spouse is at home, surrounded by all the modern communications gear a man could want. The other spouse is out running errands, and she has a cell phone in her purse.

The husband, sweaty in his workout duds, comes in from the three-car oven where the family keeps its fancy treadmill/torture machine.

The coffee pot is nearly empty, and he goes to make another pot and, oh my Lord, there’s no coffee. How did this happen? There’s always extra coffee stashed around the house. But a quick search turns up nothing. Out of coffee. That’s all there is to it.

No problem. He’ll simply use his modern communications equipment to contact his wife, who can make a quick stop by the market on her way home. He can exist without coffee until she gets here, and he won’t have to actually get dressed.

He dials, but gets voicemail. He leaves a message: “Hi, hon. It’s me. We’re out of coffee. Can you pick some up while you’re out? Thanks.”

OK, he thinks, she left the phone in the car. No big deal. She’ll get the message. He’ll get coffee. Eventually.

But what if she doesn’t get the message? Maybe she’ll forget to check. She’ll come all the way home, and have to go right back out again. Or, worse, he’ll have to go.

Through the miracle of redial, he calls every few minutes, hoping to catch her at that magic moment when she’s actually in the supermarket. He leaves a message each time so she won’t think all the hang-ups are some sort of emergency signal that means he’s fallen off a ladder.

“Hi, hon. Hope you got my message. About the coffee. Call and let me know.”

“Me again. Just trying to catch you near the phone. About the coffee.”

“Houston, we’ve got a problem. We’re outta coffee up here. Not enough for even one pot. Please acknowledge.”

“Breaker, breaker, good buddy. We’ve got an emergency situation here. Come back. With coffee.”

“Stardate 070822. The Enterprise has … been … stricken. No … coffee. Gasp.”

“Hey, hon? This isn’t funny anymore. About the coffee? Call and let me know you got these messages. I’m down to the dregs here. I’ll put on shoes and go to the store if I have to, but since you’re already out and about and (beep)--”

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale. A tale of a fateful trip. They started out without coffee, and they never got a sip. They never got a sip.”

“Mayday, mayday. We’re going down. No coffee. Emergency measures taken. Drinking old decaf from last Christmas that I found in the back of the cabinet. Wish me luck. Over.”

“Houston, do you copy? It’s not working. I repeat, it’s not working. Decaf not enough to combat effects of hangover. Slipping out of consciousness. Must … lie … down.”

“Ground Control to Major Tom.”

Finally, she answers, of course, and she’s in the checkout line, coffee in hand. The miracle of modern telecommunications saves the day.

But you should see our phone bill.

Today's special

Me: What's your strong coffee today?

Starbucks barista: Our Thanksgiving blend.

Me: Does it tastes like pumpkin?

Barista (not missing a beat): Mashed potatoes and gravy.

Dieting at your desk

Americans are obsessed with their diets and spend billions every year on how-to-lose books and "lite" foods and various other snake-oil remedies. In an attempt to cut off a slice of that action, we now present the Easy Diet Plan for Home-Office Workers.

Millions of people now work out of their homes, sitting alone at computers all day, while the refrigerator is right there, humming its song of seduction. A diet plan for these workers should be a lucrative hit on the market. Get in on the ground floor!

With our Easy Diet Plan, we reveal the secrets to good nutrition known only to those who work at home. It's all about calories, friends. Consuming 'em and burning 'em. But unlike other so-called diet plans, we don't insist that you count calories all day or worry about every little thing you feel like stuffing into your mouth.

No, with the Easy Diet Plan, we teach you that some foods, depending upon how and where they're eaten, have no calories at all. Our research among at-home workers -- who tend to be a peculiarly gourd-shaped people -- has found they are convinced of this Proven Fact, and their eating habits reflect a superstition bordering on religious fervor.

You probably know the most common tenet of this dieting belief system: Food eaten while standing over the kitchen sink has no calories. This dieting maxim is so widespread there are websites maintained by its followers.

What you learn from our Easy Diet Plan is WHY eating over the sink is preferred by anorexics everywhere. It's the Drip Factor. Crumbs and spills from your messy food drip into the sink, carrying calories with them. Clean-up is a snap, and all those nasty calories are whisked away down the drain. Time for dessert!

Research has found many other such exceptions to biology, and they're all revealed in our Easy Diet Plan.

For instance, did you know that food eaten at your mother's house has no calories? It simply doesn't count! Doesn't that make you want to go visit Mom?

Here's one that especially important for home-office workers: Food eaten at your desk contains no calories. How can this be, you might ask? We don't know. But we firmly believe it to be true.

Coffee, that home-office staple? No calories. Even if you load it up with cream and sugar and that frothy stuff people wear in their mustaches. No calories. Not a one. Coffee is a stimulant, people. It burns up calories. If anything, you should drink more of it. Right now. Go get some. Faster, faster.

Food dropped on the floor? A caloric freebie. Of course, for reasons of food hygiene, you should always follow the Five-Second Rule. If the food's been on the floor more than five seconds, it's probably acquired too many high-calorie dust bunnies to be safely consumed.

Here's another Proven Research Fact: Any food you can eat without benefit of a napkin has no calories. No, really. This is why so many of us home-office workers wear relaxed-fit jeans all day. We wipe our hands on our pants. With blue jeans, you can't even tell. For days.

Food items too drippy or otherwise messy to be eaten at the desk or without a napkin should, of course, be eaten over the sink. It's simple logic, friends.

If you work at home, you can eat light, quick meals (over the sink) several times a day rather than sitting down to the dining table for three hearty, calorie-heavy meals. This so-called "grazing" method is recommended by dietitians and snake-oil salesmen worldwide.

By "grazing," some at-home workers have been known to eat upwards of 15 light, nutritious meals a day! And they don't gain more than twenty, twenty-five pounds per year. Try applying your calorie math to that!

By carefully monitoring your frequent snack-food intake and the geography of your dining habits, you, too, could enjoy the benefits of the Easy Diet Plan for Home-Office Workers.

Sign up today!

The bitter truth

Imagine that our corporation is on the verge of introducing a new product, a beverage that could take the world by storm. Then, as so often happens to good ideas, the Marketing Department gets hold of it. The response probably would be something like this:

To: CEO Whittlebrain
From: Marketing
Subject: New beverage

We here in Marketing regret to report that this proposed product is dead-on-arrival. Research shows there's simply no market for it. The product has so many problems, we're not even sure where to begin. But here's a sampling of what's wrong:

--This drink is served hot. Market research shows that customers prefer cold drinks.

--We sampled the product here in Marketing, and found it to be bitter and caustic. We had to add cream and sugar to make it at all palatable. This is not a good sign.

--The proposed price would put this product in the "expensive" range, yet it's mostly water that must be added by the customers themselves. We don't often credit the American buying public with much sense here in Marketing, but surely they'd see through this.

--Research and Development has predicted that this beverage will be popular in restaurants, but it already costs a lot and eateries must add their own profit margin. Do we really think people will pay $4 for a cup at a restaurant?

--The beverage is produced from beans grown in tropical climes, and we all know how iffy that can be. First, supply will be subject to the vagaries of the weather. Second, tropical countries aren't known for the stability of their governments or economies. Do we really need another coup interrupting delivery? We suppose we could push the drink as "all-natural," but it doesn't seem to fit that market niche, which we here in Marketing call the "Birkenstocks." Hasn't R&D ever heard the phrase "artificial color and flavorings?"

--Finally, the product seems to have a number of "lifestyle" drawbacks. We found that a single serving made us feel jittery. And multiple servings resulted in frequent need for bathroom breaks. This isn't what the American public seeks in a quick refreshment.

Our conclusion? Dump this product immediately and focus our R&D efforts on something Americans want and need, such as fruit-flavored malt liquor.

OK, you've guessed it by now. The beverage is coffee, an old stand-by that's taken the country by storm. Coffee is the Model T of drinks, basic and black and low-brow. You can dress it up however you want -- add froth and flavors and call it something like Mocha-Choka and sell it for six bucks at Starbucks -- but underneath it's still coffee, the lifeblood of the American worker.

Remember your first taste of coffee? It seemed exotic, something adults slurped from heavy ceramic mugs, the perfect balance to their unfiltered cigarettes and rye toast. When they finally let us try a sip, our reaction was something along the lines of the mythical marketers above.

But as with so many things -- that first cigarette, that first tipple of Scotch -- initial disgust soon gave way to pure enjoyment. And enjoyment became an addiction. Now, most of us can't face getting out of bed without a soothing jolt of caffeine.

We start the coffee pot first thing in the morning, even before we brush our teeth. Even -- and this is saying a lot -- before we check our e-mail. And many of us swill it down all day long.
Coffee becomes particularly important to those of us who work at home. It loses much of its social aspect (what's the point of enjoying a coffee break if you're all alone?), but fetching more java gives us an opportunity to walk away from the computer for a few minutes. And that caffeine high keeps us going through the day. Without coffee, we'd never get any work done.

Is it a coincidence that coffee consumption is up at the same time that American productivity is at an all-time high? I don't think so.

So let's all sing praises for coffee, the natural stimulant. It may be bitter and costly and it may stain your clothes, but we desperately need it to keep going every day.

And it's bound to be better than fruit-flavored malt liquor.