Paid visit to local coffee shop.
Ordered black, plain. No milk. No mixing of colors to create an undecided, diluted, caffeinated abomination savored by beatniks and hippies. Just black. Or white. Cannot have both.
Was offered Swedish coffee and French coffee -- but not American coffee.
Veidt's latest flavor lines the shelves: "Mocha Millennium". Declined. Generic coffee made from the hands of slave labor, slave labor manipulated by the hands of drug lords, drug lords unsatisfied with their stranglehold over potheads and delinquents and enticed by the warm, savory scent of cold, hard cash.
Manager comes by, shows me "Nite Owl Dark Roast." Describes it as low calorie, organic, bold, dark, robust blend. Ironic. Doesn't fit Dreiberg at all: dumpy, artificial, cowardly, pale, bloated. Perhaps better this way, that the two do not taste the same.
Waitress asks me what I want. Had nose ring. Low-cut shirt revealed navel piercing. Thought about the way prostitutes adorn themselves with jewelry, embrace gaudy, revealing fashions, to attract customers. Remember the days when prostitutes sold love, not overpriced, pretentious, liquid stimulants. Why are so few baristas left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?
Left.
Miss old days. Fresh coffee. Newspapers. Men with pipes. Women with aprons.
No "Mocha Millennium". No coffee pretending to taste like Dreiberg. No prostitutes pushing flavor of the month.
This city needs new brew.
