| Put A Coffee Thermos In My Coffin written by Lane Hudson |
| Coffee is my drug of choice. I drink lot's of it, as much as 12 cups daily. My wife knows if I ever need a kidney transplant, to just install a coffee filter. The magical black drink has prepared me for many tedious exams, pointless business meetings, and boring speeches. It has supported me into the night with grieving friends, and it has welcomed me after an afternoon's long winter walk in the woods. After wrapping my fingers around a steaming hot cup, my soul is always warmed from the inside. Coffee has been the finale to many wonderful dinners with friends. Coffee has helped with me with life's great decisions, giving philosophical insight to single moments. Once, while camping on the side of a mountain and pondering life's purpose, my morning coffee spoke to me, "Hudson, you're making money, but you're not making progress." I thanked my cup and rearranged my priorities. I began my trip down this road of moral decay at a young age, drinking coffee with lot's of cream and sugar in grammar school. Breakfast was the sound of bacon frying accompanied by the percolating of the coffee pot. I learned in grammar school that each day requires both a sunrise and a cup of coffee. In high school, after a day of hunting quail and squirrels, my father and I came home and made a pot of coffee. My school friends' parents always looked surprised when I asked for coffee with a meal. I discovered that it was a rite of passage into the fraternity of older people. And when you need the buzz, you need the buzz. "Coffee doesn't need nearly as much water as most people think it does," according to a friend whose coffee wears out coffee cups and spoons. I once witnessed another friend, during the intermission of a play she was directing, eat four teaspoons of instant coffee dry, washing it down with a glass of cold water. "I don't have time to wait for it to brew," she said as she charged from the break room. I saw her later; she could have threaded a running sewing machine. Coffee with fancy names or high prices don't impress me. Gourmet coffee, courtesy of my wife's checkbook and UPS, arrives monthly at my house. She drinks it. I don't like it. My coffee of choice? Campfire coffee. First, you bring the water to a boil in an open pot over a wood fire. Then you drop in the dry coffee grounds and boil until black. Then, by sprinkling cold water into the bubbling black liquid, the coffee grounds sink to the bottom. On a cold winter's morning in the mountains, that's coffee to jumpstart a dead battery and a sleepy soul. Is coffee going to kill me? Not according to the experts. But the accumulated caffeine in my body may keep me moving for several days after I die. My wife is worried that I might interrupt my own funeral service banging against the inside of my coffin reaching for another cup of coffee. She says she might duct tape my arms down. I have a better solution. Just wrap my cold dead fingers around a thermos of strong coffee in my coffin. It could be a long trip. |
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