You pick up the paper. You load up the Daily's Web site. You sit and blink as the text swims in front of your eyes.
Perhaps a professor is saying something to you about a quiz next week or your roommate is making that snoring/choking sound again, but you don't really register it.
You can't. It's before 10 a.m.
Then, suddenly, your hand finds the warm cup next to your laptop or books, and you know: It's going to be all right.
You have coffee.
Being a food columnist, I should probably say something culinary-wise about coffee and the process by which it is grown and that sort of stuff. There's a berry involved, apparently, and what we call "beans" are the seeds of the plant.
This I know only from staring at some "Fun Facts" posted on the walls of some educationally-minded café whilst waiting for a hot beverage. Cafés are clever operations. They can get you to do anything as you wait for your coffee - even fill out crossword puzzles or navigate a crowd of java-buzzed hipsters.
I can't tell you much more about coffee, other than that it has probably replaced my blood at this point in the semester. And I see other like-minded souls, clutching their morning (and afternoon and evening) brews like life rafts, trying to recover from the false sense of security instilled by Thanksgiving break.
At least we've got reusable mugs, right? We coffee lovers may be caffeine-addicted, but we're not environmentally irresponsible. By definition, we are thoughtful people, because without coffee, we cannot think.
Coffee is one of those things for which I will nearly always go out of my way - especially good coffee. Dunkin Donuts on Boston Ave? It'll do in a rush, but when I have yet to be caffeinated, I find it tough to face that obnoxious pink and orange.
If I want to thoroughly enjoy my hot beverage, I'm going to 1369 in Inman. Or Simon's in Porter. Or Diesel in Davis. (I know, why not the Danish Pastry House? I'm still waiting for them to pull me a decent shot of espresso.)
There is, however, a dilemma amongst the coffee drinkers. No, it is not how to get rid of the tea drinkers, what with their artisan infusion bags and honey swizzle sticks.
This problem is bigger. It is what I call Straight Coffee Snobbery.
You know these snobs, snootily snubbing the coffee condiments the rest of us cling to with carbohydrate abandon. But I've fallen prey to it, too.
I tried all of sophomore year to wean myself off of dairy additives, thinking that by drinking black coffee I could reach a higher level of caffeine elitism, with its implied artist's status and inexplicable intellectual heft. Once, I thought to myself, "If I can take my coffee straight, I must seem sophisticated and mature."
Now, I think to myself, "If I take my coffee straight, I will soon have an ulcer."
Undiluted or merely a vessel for half and half, it's still responsible for every person who ever passed a class that meets at 9:30 a.m. on a Friday morning. It's responsible for my continued love affair with soy (foamed? heavenly!). It's responsible for the bathroom breaks on nearly every road trip I've taken in the past four years.
Heck, it's responsible for the very column you've just read.
Kate Peck is a senior majoring in English. She can be reached at katherine.peck@tufts.edu.
