Coffee.

I don't know what to call these… vignettes? Micro non-fiction? Either way, they felt like they belonged together. Enjoy!

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Black with One Sugar

Many, many years ago, there was a boy with blue eyes and black hair who had the bad boy attitude with a voracious reading habit and the last day I saw him, I left a book in his backpack with a note that he might or might not have read. He never called me back.

Years later, there was a girl with long black hair and brown eyes who played soccer and did not take any shit from anyone and was too cool for school who did not read books, but I wish I also left a note on her backpack the last time I saw her. We’re still good friends.

They both drank black coffee with one sugar. I tried it.

The crushes went away.

Latte with a Splash of Vanilla

I used to hate everything that made me, me. I'd hate that I am tall and lanky when I’m skinny but weirdly baggy when I’m not and my legs are too long no matter my weight and my hair too curly no matter the day and I'd perfect my white girl accent because people don't want to hear my natural accent, okay?

Now, all I hate is that I am as basic as a hot latte with a splash of vanilla on a cold day. I wear the leggings but have never owned the UGGs.

It’s okay. No one’s perfect.

Espresso with Ice Cream

Espresso without someone to tame the hit is reserved for coffee snubs¹ and psychopaths. One day, I make a double shot but we ran out of milk. There’s ice cream in the freezer. It’s kind of the same thing, my partner says. Because ain’t nobody got time to go groceries when there’s coffee in front of them.

For the next week, regardless of milk status in the house, I drank my Espresso with vanilla ice cream until the ice cream carton was gone and I had gained, at least, five pounds.

I couldn't stop.

Matcha Latte (Counts as Coffee to me)

My life partner partakes in his own version of a ceremonial Matcha tea and, besides the slight worry that he might be appropriating a culture, it's the cutest thing. On our kitchen island, he boils the water and puts the powder in a wide cup, does the little thing with the little brush and serves two cups of tea in the small cups.

I tasted grass and looked at him like the heart eyed emoji.

Flat White

There is a coffee shop named the Busy Bee a few towns over, that once let us in five minutes before it closed. We hurried up and took the coffee to-go because Porch Fest was in full swing and there was a gorgeous violin playing her heart out on the opposite corner to the coffee shop and I didn’t want to miss one single note².

It was the day I started thinking that, maybe, just maybe, I have a coffee problem.

Gingerbread Latte

My husband and I drove to the nearest Starbucks in the exciting town of Latrobe, PA three days in a row during Christmas break because I was deeply obsessed with their Gingerbread lattes, no sugar (ha). A light snowfall started while he came out, juggling two cups of coffee while I opened the car door with a massive grin because the flurries stuck to his hat and the tip of his nose.

While losing myself in gingerbread and not-sugar goodness, we drove to the nearest carwash, a big surfboard as a sign and the tagline Ride the Wave, and as weird as it was seeing a surfboard in western PA, it was weirder that it was full of snow.

We passed by rolling hills and open land in a spanking clean car under snow flurries freezing on our windshield and the heavenly smell of sugary coffee in our nostrils and heated seats in our asses.

That night, I gave him a kiss good night, and I told him I loved him like the smell of gingerbread latte in the middle of the lightshow of a carwash.

1. Like my partner. And Europeans, I guess.

2. My violin obsession, most likely, starts with Lestat. I need a life, y’all.