Mr (Coffee) Bean

I'm afraid that, when it comes to coffee, I'm a bit of a snob. Actually, I'm a lot of a snob. Oh, alright, I'm a total snob.

The reason for this snobbery is quite simple: I like coffee, and I take my coffee seriously. No, don't bother telling me to get a life or a hobby. As far as I am concerned, coffee is part of the vocation of being, like reading a good book or sampling the finest single malt. I drink coffee, therefore I am: and therefore, don't even think about offering me instant - I'll take a cup of tea instead.

Ergo, I buy coffee in bean form in order to freshly grind said beans in the instant before they get immersed in hot water. I let the coffee brew, in order to bring out the rich flavour (and to bask in the luxuriant waft of coffee aroma). And then I gently stir and plunge said coffee in order to produce the perfect cuppa: rich, strong, and invigorating (a bit like me, really - except for the rich, strong, and invigorating bit).

Of course, if I had my druthers, I'd prefer to make coffee by brewing it in one of those dandy little pots where you put the coffee in the bottom before placing it on the stove and letting the combination of heat and steam from boiling water do their work. Now, that's coffee to die for - in fact, it's so strong it probably would kill you eventually. But what a way to go! But in the meantime, I'll content myself with the trusty old plunger, which really does work a treat.

And what I really love doing is mixing together beans of different coffee varieties before I grind them in order to produce a great blend. New Guinea highlands with Ethiopian arabica; East Timorese organic with Vietnamese mountain-grown; Costa Rican dark roasted with Kenyan mocha...yum! Blending coffee beans is the best!

Now, I know what you're thinking: you're thinking that I'm a coffee fanatic with no sense of perspective. Well, you're wrong. As it turns out, there is a lighter side to coffee, a lighter side that emerges by asking oneself what the type of coffee a person drinks says about their personality. Yes, yes, I know; this isn't a scientifically valid methodology for ascertaining individual personality traits. But then, neither is Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram, and yet people seem to have no trouble swooning over them and crying: "Oh, look, I'm an SIPD (Sad, Inadequate, Pathetic, Drip)!" Come to think of it, I reckon my coffee-personality index might have as much if not more validity than asking someone if they prefer parties to quiet nights in and extrapolating from the answer that they're an introvert (oooh, how insightful!).

And anyhoo, this is meant to be fun. So here goes - what drinking a particular type of coffee says about your personality:

Flat White. Well, the name says it all, really. You're dull, tedious, traditional (in the unoriginal, crushingly monotonous sense of the word), and about as straight-laced as an 80 year old virginal teetotling non-smoker whose idea of high times is crocheting and a cup of Horlicks before bedtime. The key words here are flat and white. In other words, you've got about as much personality as roadkill...in fact, to be fair to roadkill, they can be pretty interesting sometimes. You, on the other hand, are not; your idea of life is living a long time without actually engaging in any of the interesting bits (sex, hangovers, broken hearts, self-discovery, God, etc). So, you go on drinking your insipid brew; when future archaeologists discover your fossilised yet still-breathing remains 10,000 years from now, they won't actually realise you're alive - and neither will you. In fact, you never have. Drinkers of Caffe Latte also fall into this category.

Long Black. You have a serious personality disorder. Either you have delusions of grandeur and think you're some kind of stud-muffin gigolo before whom the babes can't wait to get on their knees and venerate, or you are beset by feelings of such deep insecurity that you think everyone is whispering about you and giggling behind your back. Of course, there's a third possibility: that people actually are whispering about you and giggling behind your back because they recognise you have delusions of grandeur about your babe-pulling capacity - and that, in point of fact, the only thing you pull is that which is the cause of your insecurity. Hence your pathetic attempt to "advertise" your self-proclaimed virility, or compensate for your perceived shortcomings, by drinking pints of super-strong, iron-floating coffee. But we're wise to you, buster; because us real men, who know we can pull the babes and understand everyone admires and envies us, drink straight black coffee for the sheer enjoyment of unadulterated caffeine. We don't need to pretend; we know...

Macchiato. Short or long, the only reason you drink this is because you're a procrastinator. Like most things in your life, you can't decide what you want and are too afraid to make a decision in case you realise later that what you chose isn't, afterall, your heart's desire, and you really want that which you chose not to have. And so you order a macchiato, because you can't decide if you want a long black or a flat white; so you get what is, in effect, a black coffee with a smidge of milk; or, looking at it another way, a short white coffee with extra caffeine. Naturally, your life is plagued with similar mind-bending problems like: should you get the 1.5kg bag of flour at $2 or the 1.25kg bag at $1.50; should you go with the blue jacket and white blouse or the black jacket and red blouse; should you get the car wash with the hot wax or the car wash with the cold wax? And, naturally, since you can't make up your own mind, you'll inflict your uncertainties on everyone within a million square kilometre radius and ask them to do it for you; but then you won't be able to decide whose opinion is more authoritative, and whose advice you should go with. In short, drinking macchiato says this about you: you need to make a f#!*^!*!g decision and live with it! And you need to do it quickly - before that lynchmob of frustrated acquaintances coming into view over the horizon hoists you on the petard of your own indecisiveness!

Espresso. Like the coffee itself, the message of espresso drinking is short, simple, and to the point: you are a pretentious git. You're the kind of knob who thinks drinking espresso (especially if done while seated at a roadside table in South Yarra or Carlton) makes you "European" or sophisticated. But unless you are actually European, or, failing that, unless you actually understand that the joy of espresso is the invigoration which a shot of the good stuff provides the drinker, imbibing this brew says one thing, and one thing only: you are a wanker. In fact, you're a self-abuser of such monumental proportions that blindness is an inevitability, if, indeed, it hasn't occurred already. Certainly, you are blind to what a total clot you are, sipping your espresso in its tiny cup, all the while serenely surveying the world and imagining that it is your oyster. You not only need to get a life, you need a reality check as well; because that babe who sauntered past your table just now wasn't checking you out, she was thinking what a tragic waste it was that such a good table should be occupied by such a bad joke.

Cappuchino. You really are the Kath and Kim of the caffeine world. In fact, it's probably not too much to say that you spend far too much time in shopping malls, sitting at those little coffee bars that occupy the middle of the cavernous avenues between stores, thinking you're having such a fun time simply because you're here watching all the other anodyne drips wandering aimlessly about, instead of being back home cooing over daytime TV and the latest "must have" offerings of Dickheads Direct. Any person who thinks froth and chocolate sprinklings over milky coffee constitutes a vibrant drinking experience really doesn't have much going for them; and it's probably just as well for the species as a whole that natural selection will inevitably ensure that you and your kind leave fewer surviving descendants than the rest of the general population. In the meantime, enjoy your simple "pleasures" - it's all you've got left while waiting for extinction to arrive.

Mocha. You're here for a good time, not a long time. Over-indulgence isn't a sin for you; it's your middle name. Your idea of restraint is not adding sugar to your already saccharine loaded blend of coffee and chocolate syrup. Like a pig in a mud pen, life for you is one long, glorious rollick as you wallow in your self-generated mire of hedonistic pleasure. Well, make that one short and glorious rollick - 'cause you ain't gonna be around for long. Even as you imbibe your latest orgiastic brew, your arteries are hardening, your cardio-vascular system is going south for the winter, and blood clots are forming and rushing with determined gait towards the sugar-coated embolism-to-be that passes for your brain. But what they hey? If you're going to go out, you're going to go doing what you love, right? Yeah, right - except for that one nagging micro-second just before you die when you realise that life is sweeter than all that sugar you've been ingesting, and you wish - you just wish - you had maybe not given the good things in life such a nudge. Oh, well, carpe diem and all that; and quite literally, too, because you don't have that many diems to carpe left...

Well, there you have it. If you find yourself identifying with any of the categories contained herein, you only have yourself to blame. And as for Yours Truly...well, naturally, none of the above applies to me. I just drink coffee for the hell of it.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Coffee - that which, in England, tastes like a chemical experiment. (Agatha Christie)

Vertically Challenged

I've decided that, while it may not be proof-positive you're a moron, the fact that you do your shopping at a convenience store displays a tendency toward the moronic. Indeed, there seems to be a mathematical relationship: the more frequently you shop at a convenience store, the higher the likelihood that your personality is skewed toward the defective end of the scale.

Now, dear reader, I realise that this statement represents a rather sweeping generalisation, especially given most of the population have, at one time or another, shopped at a convenience store. Therefore, let me demonstrate the truth of my thesis by regaling you with examples from my own experience as a humble convenience store employee.

The first type of moron I call disabled parkers. Not, I hasten to add, because they happen to suffer the misfortune of being disabled; rather, because their brains seemingly cease to function as soon as they drive onto the forecourt in front of the store. And this brainlessness manifests itself in the way they park their cars; they are seemingly unable to park in anything like a logical and reasonable manner. Hence, disabled parkers. These are the people who park vertically in the horizontal parking bays; and who park horizontally across the vertical bays. These are the people who think its perfectly appropriate to park where there are no parking bays at all: in front on the security bollards near the front entrance, for example; or across the driveway providing access to the fuel pumps. These are the morons who take no account of the fact that parking bays are provided for a reason: to ensure that all stationary traffic not actually parked next to a fuel pump is safely out of the way! No kidding, I wish I had a buck for every time I've shaken my head in disbelief over their escapades: I'd be a rich man by now. Maybe even rich enough to compensate for the ulcers I'm developing as a consequence of contemplating their stupidity.

The next species of moron I call whingers. There are two types of whingers: those who complain about the prices; and those who moan because such-and-such a product isn't in stock. Both do so on a regular basis; indeed, so regularly that you could set your watch by them. The same day each week, the same time each day, in they trundle to complain about the same thing they've always complained about. You're much more expensive than the supermarket! Really? Well, then, f**k off to the supermarket! You don't have any widgets in stock! Really? Maybe that's because we've never had any f*****g widgets in stock! Lord forgive me, but I've almost succumbed more than once to the temptation to strangle the living crap outta these morons. Why can't they appreciate that a "convenience store" is "convenient" because it's local and open - not because it has the economies of scale to carry a wide stock range or the "cheaper" prices you'll find at the big chain stores?

A third variety of moron are the pullers. Now, I know what you're thinking; and while it may just be possible that these selfsame pullers also practice self-abuse in the store's public toilet, that's not why I've given them this particular epithet. No, these morons are so called because when they encounter the store's locked security door (it gets locked after a certain time at night in order to ensure the staff don't bunk off for a smoke behind the car wash) their midget-sized brains tell them: hey, that door's locked - better pull HARDER! No kidding, some of these prize fools have almost pulled the door off its hinges in their desperate attempts to get into the store (and complain about the prices and/or our pitiably small stock), all the while valiantly ignoring the clearly visible sign instructing them that, should the door be locked, they need only ring the bell in order to gain access. Of all the classifications of moron, the pullers exert a kind of compelling fascination: you can't help but wonder what passes through their pathetic excuse for a mind as they yank away - what, at any rate, compels them to persist in tugging at a door that clearly won't open. I don't think congenital stupidity - or even anything as mundane as plain, old drunkenness - resolves the conundrum; I think their idiocy approaches depths that are truly existential.

There are many, many more classifications of moron. For example, the jerks who think it's okay to jump-start their broken-down vehicle while it's still parked next to the fuel pump - clearly, heroically ignoring the fact that sparks and fuel vapour don't mix. Or the related delinquents who think it's okay to ignore the prohibitions against smoking or talking on their mobile phones while standing at the fuel pumps. Or the tools who, because the store is located on a relatively busy intersection controlled by traffic lights, are intent on saving a whole 2 seconds travelling time by tearing across the forecourt in order to avoid having to wait for the lights to change, somehow by the grace of God narrowly avoiding collisions with every other vehicle - and pedestrian - on the forecourt.

But I suspect you're starting to get the picture, right?

Anyhoo, while I'm prepared to concede that while not everyone who shops at a convenience store is in consequence a moron, there does seem to be something about the experience that insidiously, ruthlessly destroys the brain cells, rendering the victim a zombie disguised as a consumer. And for all I know, the malaise could be entirely localised: once they leave the store's bounds, maybe they revert to normal, intelligent, thinking human beings. Maybe - but maybe the effect is permanent. Forget swine flu - conveniencestore moroniosis could be the biggest thing to hit humanity since the Black Death.

And as for the effects on the people who work in convenience stores - well, I'll leave that to your over-active imaginations!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: See the happy moron, he doesn't give a damn; I wish I was a moron - my God, perhaps I am! (Anonymous)