Coffee

"I drink my coffee black because I understand what is. It's a drug just get it in me so I can start my day. If you drink enough coffee in the morning you actually like your job for a few hours."
-Marc Maron-

I think I'm addicted to coffee, and why shouldn't I be? It’s delicious and chock full of caffeine, my all-time favorite drug. In the summer when I woke up at ridiculous hours to work a bullshit job I remember having momentary lapses of judgment and spastic episodes on mornings when my dad woke up too late to make coffee (what, you expected me to get up early enough to make it?). Often times my friends would be the victims of my morning rages, which I'm okay with. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t handle each others' ridiculous rages? The real problem in being addicted to coffee is that I'm not okay without it, and not in the spastic way. I'm talking about physically. I literally have headaches and hand tremors if I haven't had at least 16 ounces of black magic within an hour of waking up. I admit the problem could be much worse. I could be "self-medicating" with other, more illegal drugs, right? At least I drink it black which is something A. people seem to be unable to grasp, B. tastes wonderful, and C. keeps all that unnecessary junk like cream and sugar from screwing with my head any more than the coffee already does. Anyway, since I'm definitely not alone in feeling this way towards coffee I've become mostly okay with it. I figure I'll probably be this way for the rest of my life and if I can just keep my consumption to the mornings I'll be fine and stay rested without the terrible headaches.

The collateral damage I'm finding is that I've finally been brainwashed into going along with a corporate ad campaign. It’s hard to believe that someone like me who refuses to wear designer clothes or anything with any type of corporate insignia (A+F, etc.) because of the marketing implications has been duped by McDonalds Corp. of all the big names who are constantly making money from subliminal ad campaigns. I’m talking about the new "any size coffee for 69 cents" at McDonalds. Of course our dining hall has free coffee, but I swear to Christ they water it down so that we spend money at the on-campus Jazzman’s cafe'. I don't want free watered down coffee, I want that real kick in the groin black coffee. Yes, of course I’m talkin’ about McDonalds "Premium Roast." So I drive the whole three blocks to McDonalds most mornings for my coffee. The real brainwashing takes place when, despite my once dominant will power, I decide that I need either a breakfast sandwich or a cinnamon roll to help soak up the coffee. I don't even like McDonald's food. I justify these unforgivable acts of fatassery by reminding myself that I work in a gym and thus work out almost against my will most days, but the fact that I drive three blocks to get there certainly doesn't help me to feel better about myself.