I like Coffee, I'm drinking some now. PS [3.14]
For a long time 0-45 I did not consider myself a coffee drinker. In fact I was a dedicated coffee avoider. I even had a story about my coffee avoidance.
As Little Bobby I believed that rejection of coffee implied my rejection of Little Bobby-hood. I was wrong about the particulars. I did not like coffee because everyone drank bad coffee back then. Robusto beans taste like shit. I didn't need a jolt because I got plenty of sleep. There was absolutely no reason for coffee to touch my young lips.
Daddy liked coffee even on hot summer days. When Nana Fay came up from SA the two of them would exchange family updates over coffee. They got caught up from the last time they talked. They paid special attention to the unexpected or unpredictable. Anything other than "she's just like that" or "he said before that he was going to do that next time". Sharing family behavior is a good trick. You find out who has a hand out or who can give you a leg up - depending on your situation.
The self-deception I invented was that I didn't want to be just like Daddy. Otherwise I would have liked coffee. Daft of course but that's what I came up with. Worse still, later when I mistakenly rejected Daddy's skewed perspective on life I lumped the coffee avoidance into a transference narrative. Also completely wrong.
In college I started drinking Diet DP and later Diet Coke. I enjoyed both. I didn't miss coffee because I was still around bad coffee at work and no coffee at home. When I was a young 40, Beverly Vann and I were at work after 10pm and she invited me for coffee. I held up my Diet Coke "don't do coffee". She told me that I was missing something. The warm coffee delivered a jolt that the cold DC did not. I didn't try it then (??? dumb, stubborn ???).
In San Francisco, Olga and I both tried Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista and I was hooked. When we were leaving for the airport Olga got me a latte at SB and we added some Jamesons. Heavenly. I could be Little Bobby again. Which was always self-deception.
SBOP
