Month of Thanks: Day 14

Hello, my name is Angela, and I am an addict.

I hate to admit it, but I am completely and totally addicted to overpriced, fru-fru coffee. Now, I'm not a complete snob. Starbucks is awesome, but I'll also drink the fancy stuff from our local coffee shop, Scooters, or from other nice coffee bars. I just love good coffee.

 

Now, I am not one of those people who takes five minutes to order or anything: the "grande low-fat, soy, half-caff caramel macchiatto with two pumps of syrup, in a venti cup with extra whipped cream and cinnamon" kind of people just piss me off. I always want to yank their funky yarn caps off their hipster heads and tell them to get a life. No, I'm generally a drip coffee gal, who likes the occasional seasonal coffee--nothing says fall like a pumpkin-spice latte and Christmas shopping is just more fun with a peppermint mocha in hand.

 

I even spend a fortune on coffee for at home. Right now I'm brewing shade grown, fair-trade Ethiopian coffee. I've been known to drive to Parkville for the in-house roasted coffee (they roast fresh daily) from the Parkville Coffeehouse.

 

And I'm not alone in my problem. Brad has perfected the perfect pull from our home espresso machine. He even drank Kopi Luwak, or Civet coffee, while in Afghanistan. For those not in-the-know, Kopi Luwak is coffee in which a Civet cat has eaten the whole coffee berries and crapped out the beans, which are then washed, dried and roasted. It is the most expensive coffee in the world, costing approx. $700 a kilo (my husband received it as a gift from a fellow soldier who had traveled to Indonesia and bought it locally for much, much less).

 

Even my kids are addicted--Aiden has been licking espresso crema from our fingers from 8 months old. Aubrey loves a good cup of coffee-milk. Aiden has even graduated to ordering a cup of decaf when we go out for breakfast (which earns us a few incredulous looks from the waitstaff).

 

I actually didn't care for coffee at all until college. Even back then, I really just tolerated it. I fell in love well into adulthood, and my addiction reached its height during Brad's deployment, when I would circle through the Starbucks drive-thru next to Aubrey's school almost every morning. (Hey we had the extra deployment income, I could afford it then. Not so much now.) Now, I have a cup 2-3 times a week--once a week I get a freebie from Scooters since I showed up early to the grand opening and stood in line to get a pass for one free coffee drink of my choosing, any size, each week for an entire year. I didn't have to camp out or anything...but I might have considered it, for free coffee!!

 

So, today I am thankful for that caffeinated nectar of the gods that gets me through my mornings in one piece. And I can assure you, my kids and husband are just as thankful for coffee (and it's oh-so-positive effects on my morning demeanor) as I am.