surviving high school sans caffeine

i am better than you.

my ex-classmate (i dropped the class) Joe Lee wrote his first journal entry about how much he hated the bitter taste and pungent smell of freshly brewed dining hall coffee. except he actually loves coffee, and creative writing for him is taking the opposite stance on something so routine to him. there’s a nondescript white cup of it across the Harkness table from me right now. the particles of coffee suspended in the air have infiltrated my nose!

Sunday 11:30 PM, italian dinner, rigatoni alla vodka. Pinterest.

i am now a high school senior and never in my three-and-a-half years have i entered an abusive relationship with coffee. whilst writing this, my friend just commented, “that sounds horrific!”

however, her body mass is 14% diet coke, 3% celsius, and 0% hydrogen 2 oxygen, so her opinion is nullified. my roommate tells me my hamartia is my superiority complex. it is much like a sourdough starter—needs to be fed daily, is very much alive, and looks absolutely vile.

what i am saying is: I Am Better Than You Because I Don’t Consume Coffee.

i take pride in this achievement. i dabble in the other insidious parts of high school life: all-nighters, drinking & driving (not at the same time), two-timing, FaceTiming, pondering the inevitable end of childhood and lamenting not young adulthood, but real adulthood, the one where you have to pay taxes and check the mail for bills addressed to you, instead of college acceptance packets.

or when, at my first corporate j*b, my boss sends me to grab their Matcha Latte™ from the office coffee shop down in the lobby, and tells me to “treat myself.” so i swipe the company card for a cake pop.

i will not experience adulthood through iced lattes and quadruple-shot chais turned to americanos turned to the soulessness of hot black coffee, when others will look down into the mug they bought from an “authentic” Japanese boutique in SoHo, and see their reflections—tired—in the glistening black. coffee makes me depressed, more fatigued, more irritable. it transports me, briefly, into the body of an IBS patient. more damning is that coffee tastes like shit, and i always wonder how people don’t divert their eyes to the left by one inch and notice the chamomile sitting there, waiting.

tea is for the people who claim they went through high school without caffeine.

me, i drink tea. i drink a lot of it, because it keeps me awake.

but fuck coffee!!