There are few things in this world that I love more than my morning coffee. Mornings are generally pretty quiet affairs in my world and since my coworker Diane is usually the first person I talk to in the mornings and that's a good 45 minutes after I roll out of bed, waiting until I get to work for my 8 oz of caffeinated sanity usually isn't an issue.
Last Thursday was the exception to this rule.
Last Thursday morning was busier than usual what with leaving town that night an all. Leaving town means goodbyes to my boys, packing and getting me and my baggage out the door. I lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking about my "to dos" before leaving the house when...
plotseling de telefoon rang! Just once and then it stopped. Someone must have glanced at the clock, realized that it was 645 and thought better of calling...smart cookie. The coffee has not been had yet, I cannot be fielding phone calls.
Two minutes later the phone rang again... and again...and again. Smart cookie is maybe not so smart. Generally early morning phone calls simply go unanswered (one of the luxuries of being young and relatively unattached) but it was my sister and because she is my sister and we were traveling together later in the day, I picked up the phone. I still not really all that clear on what the conversation was about because I was half asleep and she was all kinds of worked up over the mail service but I do know that my responses were
clearly not satisfying to her as the conversation came to an abrupt conclusion and was then followed up by several clarifying text messages.
All this before I set foot out of bed and way before the coffee could find its way to defogging my brain.
So by the time I loaded up the car, squdged the kitties, kissed Wes goodbye and made my way to work, I'd already had way more than the usual amount of person to person interaction in my day. Thrown a'kilter by this atypically social morning, I thought about stopping for a latte but decided, nah...I'll save the four bucks and just make myself a cup of joe at the office.
Are you getting a sense of foreboding? Can you hear the ominous music playing? Are you thinking, "No Anna No! Stop for the latte!" If so, you can go ahead and classify yourself as a smarter cookie than I am.
A little bit later than usual, I trot up to the office and as I say my good mornings, I am informed by a seriously indignant coworker that Sesame Street is considering letting Bert and Ernie get married. Married! Apparently expanding the definition of marriage to include puppets is just far to much for the right wings' knickers, which are seriously, and very uncomfortably, twisty. It's a fun fact to be sure but then... BEFORE THE COFFEE HAS BEEN HAD... a debate gets going on about whether it's appropriate for two "male" Muppet's to get married on a kids show. And I know where this is going, it's going where almost all conversations go in my office, it's going straight towards politics.
Need I remind you at this point that THERE STILL HASN'T BEEN ANY COFFEE!
And so as I stand there, utterly bereft by my lack of coffee and the plethora of opinion flying around me the debate begins and soon I'm cringing and feeling the need to stand up and throw in my two cents (because seriously, when I have I ever been known to not have an opinion) but I'm held back by the single and powerful facts that it's not even 8 am and I STILL HAVEN'T HAD MY DAMN COFFEE YET. There is no debating pre-coffee.
As I sat at my desk, in torturous silence, waiting for my nice cuppa sanity to brew, I asked my self "who are these people who have such social skills first thing in the morning? What's wrong with these coworkers of mine who can muster not only an indignant opinion but then rile up and debate before 8 AM?"
It struck me like lightening, like a light switch being turned on...these are people with children. Children who rise and shine with the sun, full of spit and vigor and who awaken their parents with the expectation of being fed, dressed, talked to and loved. These people live in a different universe than I and have clearly already had their coffee.
Comforted by this realization that means I am not inept, just childless and thus minutely handicapped by my expectations of quiet morning, I sipped my large cup of coffee and slipped my headphones on. Bert and Ernie's love nest is none of my never mind...I don't say a world.
