Dear Internet,
I'ma level with you.
I drink a lot of coffee.
Like a LOT of coffee. It's one of those things my day just isn't complete without.
I'm one of those guys who just doesn't function quite right without coffee. 18 years old and a total coffee addict--a coffeeholic, if you will--it's like the start of a sitcom about fake-rehab.
Let me start from the beginning:
When I was a kid, I was in some children's choir--(I know, totally adorable, right?)--and every Sunday, while I was at practice, my older brother, my dad, and a couple of the other dads would head out to Starbucks to caffeinate.
Now I'll admit, I was pretty jellybeans. I mean, it's not like I was a member of the choir of my own volition (read: I was guilted into it).
So, when I was twelve, and no longer allowed to participate in the children's choir on account of my graying hairs, I was pretty psyched to go to this mystical coffee-land.
**note: my mom worked for the choir, and continued to do so after my quitting, so that Sunday morning block was still limbo-y in terms of the schedule of a gracefully aging twelve-year-old.
Problem was, I hated coffee. I thought it tasted like dirt, as most children would, because, as a coffee-lover now, the taste still kinda resembles dirt. High quality, liquified, over-priced dirt. Like the kind you buy for plants or whatever.
With that in mind, I became horribly addicted to hot chocolate.
This went on for a while.
A little while longer.
Okay, here we are:
There was this girl in the choir who I had a huge crush on. And by that, I mean we were going to get married and live on saturn, cause mars is for squares (read: I was really bad at science).
Which means that one day, my hormone enraged body compelled me to sit in the back of the practice room, sipping at my hot chocolate.
Now the big part that you need to understand about this crush, the part that I didn't mention before, was that we'd (me and this girl) had a history of hating eachother, as middle school puppy-love so often entails.
When she noticed me in the back, and being familiar with my brother's own Starbucks adventures, she said something to the effect of, "You too!? Coffee? Seriously?"
I responded with something like, "Nah, it's hot chocolate."
She, then, gave her friend, who I also knew well, the skinny, and they turned around, teasing in unison, "hot chocolate is for LOSERS!"
Now, me being the melodramatic preteen that I was, this compelled an equally melodramatic change in life-style.
The next Sunday, I told the barista to make me a mocha. To this day, I'm not quite sure how I knew what a mocha was. Somehow, I had the intuition to understand that a mocha was a mixture of a latte and a hot chocolate. Chocolate-coffee, doesn't get any better than that.
*raises cardboard coffee cup*
-Eric