All I Want Is A F***ing Cup Of Coffee
I’m from Seattle. Best city in the world as far as I’m concerned. Russell Wilson is my god, I feel weak when I use an umbrella, and I have very strong opinions about what qualifies as coffee.
I was a barista for ten years and honestly, it’s the best job I’ve ever had. The early mornings were hard, but I took a great deal of pride in how I prepared my drinks. Machines were thoroughly cleaned with Puro Caff every night, grinders were calibrated with every new bag of beans, and espresso shots were weighed out perfectly. I knew my regulars, I was fast but didn’t rush, and my latte art was halfway decent.
For me, a city is always defined in my memory by its culinary offerings. In Seattle it was dreary cafe’s that I could spend hours in. Los Angeles had the endless gourmet food trucks that I would shovel down hungover sitting on scolding hot pavement. Now I reside in Portland where I’ve spent endless nights slogging down cheap whiskey sodas paired with some of the best god damn hot wings I’ve ever had.
Every city that I’ve lived in I’ve taken on a new identity. Party animal theatre major in Seattle, broke hipster LA actor, and somewhat emotionally stable early thirties aspiring writer in Portland.
Each city has offered their own unique experiences but the one constant has always been coffee. But by the time I moved to Portland I was so overly caffeinated that I had to take a break. The jitters and heart murmurs were keeping me up at night. Recently I have rediscovered my love for coffee and have established a more healthy relationship with it. The bummer about this re-kindling is that Portland coffee...just doesn’t do it for me.
I don’t know what it is, but in the four and a half years that I’ve lived here I still haven’t established a good report with a coffee shop. It has nothing to do with the quality of Portland coffee, I’m just an insanely annoying customer. I like to know about the beans, enjoy chatting up the barista, and I order on the “small, medium, large” scale. I usually drink my coffee black but occasionally I’ll treat myself to a vanilla almond milk latte. Not too hot. I’ve become my own worst nightmare.
Sorry to divulge for a second, but I feel that must express my thoughts on growing old and adhering to a routine:
The older I get the more my stubbornness clings to my personality like marinara stains to Tupperware. It’s always been hard for me to fathom why older people stick to their routines so vigorously. Then I hit my thirties and suddenly I understood.
The fear of growing old is a common one. On top of the inevitability of death, I’ve always dreaded the idea of falling into conformity. I’m an OG teenager of the early 2000’s and like every rebellious generation, I was fixated on not becoming like my parents. What made that especially hard is that both of my parents are pretty amazing and supported my unjustified rebellion. My dad even went as far as taking me to the mall to buy me my first pair of Hot Topic pants.
Now that I’m nearing my mid thirties, I’m starting to embrace the things that I once feared. I never knew that I could achieve nirvana by cleaning my house or going to bed before midnight, yet here I am craving cleanliness and a good night's sleep over the forties of Pabst and jumping into bushes for fun. Don’t get me wrong, I still let loose, my instagram stories are proof of that, but now one night of fun and debauchery equates into three day hangovers. I now find mental solace in consistency. As much as I like new experiences, it’s nice to live in a state of familiarity.
Here’s how that connects to getting a stupid cup of coffee:
I have become a regular Starbucks customer. I know I know, corporations are evil, I fully agree, but hear me out. I go in, know what I want, pay with my preloaded card, get it quickly, go on with my day. With each sip of slightly burnt sub par overpriced “coffee,” I feel a small part of my soul die. My punishment for slugging down this corporate gruel is constant bubble gut and caffeine fueled anxiety attacks.
I’m a huge advocate for small business, but sometimes my need for convenience outweighs my humanity. If only twenty two year old me with a mohawk could see me now. He wouldn’t kick my ass (physically I think it’s impossible for me to ever throw a punch), but boy oh boy would he write an angry poem.
Recently my wife and I decided to try a local coffee shop in our neighborhood, switch things up. It was very Portland hip. The walls were covered with local art, shelves stocked with overpriced handcrafted merchandise, and decor that was a mix of a couch someone found in an alley and chairs that were hard as rock. The barista was dressed like a Wes Anderson character and it took them fifteen minutes to make a latte and a pour over. We paid our eighteen dollars, took one sip, walked around the corner where they couldn’t see us and dumped out our drinks. The best way I can describe my coffee was it tasted like someone had used a cup of boiling water to ash their cigarettes.
Trying new things is important. Supporting local independent businesses is vital. But sometimes I don’t want to be surprised by how my coffee tastes. Somedays I just want what’s familiar, and I’m learning that that’s okay. In the past I would totally settle for a coffee shop with terrible coffee or bars that pour half ounce drinks just to prove to everyone and myself that I’m not a conformist. Technically I was still conforming, but at least I dressed fun. Now I have what my parents would call “standards.”
To prevent myself from evolving into a full blown grumpy old man at the ripe age of thirty two, I’ve vowed to force myself to continue to try new things. Every week I listen to my Spotify suggested playlist for new music. If I’m getting Takeout, I encourage myself to try something new and not have a complete breakdown if it disappoints. Hell I’ll even take the risk of consuming coffee that tastes like the inside of an old jacket if it means supporting a new business.
But some days I want to bust out my wife’s fancy gold Starbucks card, get a latte the size of my head, and skip down the street enjoying my bourgeois sugar high.













