The Coffee Stain
April, May, June 2001
Vol. 29
Coffee, you said?
By M. Tye Wolfe
Coffee, you said?
Coffee is your first time down the slide at the playground.
Coffee is the A- on your history paper when you deserved a B.
Coffee is what teaches you what an “acquired taste” is. Coffee is what makes you forget that it was a taste you ever had to acquire.
Coffee is the third time you ever drive a car alone, and you’re able to shift without on of those grinding sounds that makes you think the gearbox will fall out into the highway.
Coffee is five candy bars eaten in 15 minutes when you’re too young to care about it being bad for you.
Coffee is smelling a rose after you’ve been congested for three months with a summer cold.
Coffee is a brisk two mile run down the side of the Chenango River. (A double cap is a quick, early September dive in the Chenango, on the sly, claro.)
Coffee is the purplish-red heat surrounding your heart setting fire to your blood that flows to your feet and fingertips.
Coffee is the prickly energy scurrying up millions of your dendrites and pushing your consciousness half a degree above that of hoi polloi, rendering Huxley’s doors ajar if not quite open.
Coffee is a tenth-chord whining wah-wah while a low-register bass line rumbles underneath.
Coffee is the pretty person at CVS who smiles wider at you than to any of the other customers.
Coffee is quitting your job and not worrying about your next one.
Coffee is a 35mm print of Casablanca at the downtown art theater; entry fee, $2.
Coffee, you said?
Why don’t you go buy a cup?
Coffee.
