I was having a sit-down interview with a 70-something woman one recent afternoon when she offered coffee for me.
“How do you take it?” she asked.
“Cream and sugar.”
The woman looked at me a moment over the top of her spectacles.
“Geesh,” she said. “What a sissy.”
My shame is great.
It’s one of those things, you know. I WANT to have my coffee black. Ordering a cup of coffee with cream and sugar is like ordering an apple-tini instead of whiskey; like nibbling on a carrot stick when you could be enjoying a mouthful of chewing tobacco; like doing the Jane Fonda workout when you could be pounding the heavy bag in a sweaty basement gym.
I don’t sip fruity drinks, nibble on vegetables or do Jane Fonda, but I have my coffee with cream and sugar — so yes — I’m a great, big sissy. I sip my brew with a pinky in the air instead of straight from the pot as God and John Wayne intended. How long could it possibly be before I start watching the Lifetime Channel and worrying about my figure?
I discovered coffee when I was but a wee lad with a paper route and a sincere aversion to getting up before the birds. Every morning was a battle and so straight to the Nescafe I went. Coffee was of the instant variety back then, and I had no idea how to prepare it.
I boiled the water. I spooned in the crystals and waited for the magic to happen. When it didn’t, I approached the problem the way a kid approaches one of those terrible breakfast cereals — Total, Shredded Wheat, Special K or Grape Nuts — that aim to be healthy instead of delicious. I poured a gallon of milk into the mix, along with a pound of sugar.
It was delightful. It was sweet and smooth and the caffeine hit me like a tightly folded newspaper slamming into a screen door. I was energized and inspired, completing my paper route in record time and then painting a neighbor’s fence, rotating the tires on my Huffy and walking every dog on the block, whether they wanted to or not.
Coffee hooked me from the start. Unfortunately, it was the creamy, sweet version and so now 70-something women are making fun of me. And rightfully so. Cream and sugar are coffee training wheels, turning an honest cup of Joe into something that is frilly and fussy and perfumed. My shame is great, all right.
Plus, that cream is going to go straight to my hips.
Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. Sissies can email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.
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