Good Morning Person

Picture this: Paddington, 1985, in a time before the babycino. At 5, I had my first sip, intrigued to see what this coffee business was all about. It was such a curious age, about the same time my younger sister had a go at shaving her face. My coffee curiosity was met with the most unpleasant flavoured swill I had ever encountered. It was no match for infants’ cough syrup. What a hideous concoction. I suppose coffee making has evolved somewhat in this part of the world since 1985. I’m sure that what I tried back then was instant boiling bitterness, possibly International Gross. I think their original blend was derived from truckers’ stubble rather than coffee beans.

You end up drinking it regularly at some stage, if not for the caffeine kick, just because everybody else does. We’re all part of the mass coffee cult. It’s what people do.
But of course, as soon as you stop drinking coffee your attention is drawn to people drinking coffee. I am currently on an extended coffee break, but I still notice that coffee makes the world go round. In the AM, the corporate army marches to work, armed with their caffeinated cardboard thimbles. Anyone on the street without express espresso in hand is surely sleepwalking. So it’s zombie nation until the ritual routine of the coffee bean hunt. But that is the problem, really, the hunt. There are just so many options. First of all, where to get the coffee?

There are so many coffee shops now that you have probably opened one at some stage yourself without even knowing it. They’re the contagious infections of the city. And then there are also strands of these infections; they are called franchises. We know them. If you have to order a coffee from one of these chains order like this, ‘Could I get a cup of coffee to go………in the bin?’ Because after one sip from your cardboard cylinder you will have swallowed what appears to be volcanic lava. Tastes like burning! If only tongues could wear band-aids. Well, your taste buds may return within the week. Fortunately, you cannot taste how terrible the coffee actually is. That’s how they get you. You see, it is not coffee after all, but most likely boiled water from the Gold Rush period, or perhaps even leftover Brisbane floodwater. The main ingredient lacking is obviously love, but you won’t find that in any foodcourt coffee shop. Ah, foodcourts; more commonly known (by me) as human cattle stations. Yes.

‘Let’s get a coffee’, is an expression with many meanings, and can occur without the presence of coffee. It often means, ‘Let’s sit on uncomfortable mismatched furniture in a tiny space, and brainstorm our first world problems’. Cafes; modern dungeons decorated with chairs and tables that possibly came from your grade 2 classroom. You’re surrounded by astroturf and the colour, brown. Very Hip. The barista is all about dark frames and 70s facial hair. He won’t look at you twice unless you’re wearing something from the ‘worst of’ rack at Lifeline. Whatevs, I used to play lego when they had it in banks, long before you paid a ridiculous amount to wear it as a badge. Dollarmites, dude! PS, I’m taking my coffee back if there is no love in it, hipster barista. And I want my free wifi poached with hollandaise.

Who doesn’t want to refuel whilst refueling? The fabulous thing about petrol stations is that they pretend to have a “part café” area next to the till. But seriously, we’re not there for the coffee bean aroma when you can inhale the sweet fumes of unleaded. Mmm, 2 stroke. Petrol stations market their coffee by using terms such as ‘fresh’ and ‘quality’, because we wouldn’t believe them unless they said so on a sign. Yes, and you might want to accompany your quality, fresh coffee with a quality fresh donut or sausage roll which has been in the food display cabinet since 1989. Anything can be labeled ‘fresh’ if you compare it to a fossil. I have actually thought of conducting an archeological dig in one of those food display cabinets. Oh, the relics we’d find. Antiques Roadshow, here we come!

I have decided to start a business that competes with the ever-present coffee shop. When people think they need a coffee, what they really need is to go back to sleep. They don’t need to wake up, they need to wake down. So I’m going to sell sleep. Initially I was going to open a chain of rooms with beds in them, but that sounded like a brothel. Take 2. Vending beds, street vending machines that open out into beds. Well, it’s a work in progress. At least I have a slogan, ‘Don’t let the Starbucks bite’. No.