March 08, 2003

Coffee Career

I spilled coffee on my jacket the other day - another milestone in a 5 year coffee-drinking career. It is a milestone because it breaks a long streak of success, allowing me to reflect on success only after failure.

This is only the second time that I have ever spilled coffee, and the first time that the drink has been one of the complex, espresso and whipped-cream type beverages as opposed to plain coffee.

When I was in college I started drinking coffee and prided myself on never spilling it anywhere but in my mouth at the designated times. This was no small feat as I was often sporting a dopey-fresh bookbag and, at very busy times, a laptop and case. This would mean that when I was standing in front of the coffee-that-has-no-taste-but-does-the-job machine I would be plotting the complex series of movements that would allow me to grab the coffee, put back on my bookbag, and pick up my laptop without spilling a drop.

I would like everyone to know at this point that the only time that plain coffee has ever been sacrificed was when a small chinese woman ran past me as I was picking up my coffee right after a difficult but highly successful laptop floor-to-shoulder transfer. She bumped into me and I thrust the coffee upwards - my mind shouting "Save the coffee, sacrifice yourself!". About a tablespoon of the coffee spilled down the arm of my gray jacket, and it smelled so good for weeks. The chinese woman, I assume, made it to class on time.

This time I spilled coffee by placing my coffee behind my laptop and then thirty minutes later pushing the laptop back (because it was time to take a sip of coffee) and, unaware of the coffee's location, causing it to fall to the floor where my gray jacket rested. So although the two spills are unrelated they both involve a gray jacket and the same laptop in a weird Twilight-Zone-but-nobody-really-cares kind of way.

When I came into work today I smelled coffee on my jacket and had a split second in which I thought that either I had not ever washed my jacket from 2 years ago or that I had achieved another milestone without being aware of it.

March 8, 2003 07:16 AM