Yesterday, I scarcely need to remind you, was National Coffee Day, prompting a friend of mine to post this on his Facebook:
The day after National Coffee Day is always a let-down. No one says, “happy Coffee Day” anymore; no more coffee music on the radio; all the Coffee Day decorations come down. Only 364 more days until it comes again though. <sigh>
Having suffered through the entire build-up to National Coffee Day, I can’t take it any longer. I lashed out at this guy. You see, while all around me are reveling in their coffee, I’m a lonely creature on the American landscape, an acoffeeist.
Frankly, life would be simpler for me if I liked coffee. I’ve tried, honestly, to develop a taste for coffee, but it just doesn’t work. I can go to Starbucks and pretend, but it’s a sham, a lie. No longer will I stand silently as my freedom of conscience (in the beverage realm) is marginalized by the overwhelming force of a coffee-swilling and, frankly, intolerant majority. No more, I say!
Do not great with with your unctuous “Happy Coffee Day” greetings next year! I will not smile and wish you the same. Instead, have the decency to wish me a “Happy Hot Beverage Day.” Or better yet, since that might offend those who don’t appreciate any hot drink, simply refuse to speak entirely.
When you start singing your favorite coffee carols, I’ll be blaring out “Tea for Two.” And don’t even get me started about my officemate, the guy who blithely smiles and pretends to love all mankind while decking his half of the hall with burlap coffee bags. He thinks it decoration, but I recognize the caffeine-addled head of oppression when I see it.
With a Starbucks on every corner, with grocery aisles lined in the malodorous stench of the coffee bean, all acoffeeists in American society have this drink shoved in their faces. Was it not Thomas Jefferson, that advocate of the separation of church and state, who called coffee “the favored drink of the civilized world”? No more! State-sponsored bigotry is bigotry nonetheless.
We Come to Praise Facilities Planners
But do not fear. In place of our perfectly serviceable (if slightly time-worn) restrooms, we go shinier and far-less-functional ones. I can’t speak to the goings on in the women’s restroom, but the men’s fails any reasonable test.
Apparently, we have a serious germ phobia at JCCC. While we all survived from this building’s dawn in 1972 until 2011 by actually touching things in the facilities, we now have motion activated everything. The toilets flush on their own. The sinks spew water only when hands are beneath the spigot. The soap dispenser is motion-triggered as is the paper-towel dispenser. Oh brave new world!
The problem is that none of this stuff really works as advertised. More often than not, the toilet will flush for no apparent reason as I stand or sit in its vicinity. Sometimes it takes two or three flushes for me to leave the area in an acceptable shape. We’re all about sustainable use of water at the college.
On the other hand, the faucets and soap dispensers work only intermittently. To get soap seems to require some sort of incantation. Water spurts out in two-second increments. Hot water, it would seem, has entirely disappeared from the scene.
The problem, it seems to me is that people felt the need to spend money we didn’t have to fix a problem that had not arisen and install improvements that haven’t improved anything. Other than that, they’ve done a great job.