If It Feels Good Do It

I must be the only one in my family who drinks coffee. Well, my father drinks coffee. But he’s not really, “in my family.” He’s just my dad — an extreme individualist who lives in the mecca for such people, Los Angeles.

My mother inherited her drinking habits from her own mother, who is British. So, my mom drinks “British tea.” “British tea” is actually a blend of Indian teas, served with milk. But my mother calls it “British tea.” In Hong Kong they call it “milk tea.”

“Do you want some tea?” my mother asks, whenever I visit.

“No thanks,” I’ll say.

“You should drink tea, it’s good for you.”

“Well, I already had a cup of coffee today.”

“Tea is much healthier than coffee.”

“Goddammit I don’t care! I drink coffee!”

Last time I visited, my mom announced she had a gift for me.

“I’ve got something for you!” Then she handed me a mug that said “Coffee: do stupid things faster with more energy.”

Perhaps I was being overly sensitive but I took offense to the gift and departed without it.

My stepdad is Chinese. He’s from Hong Kong. Or well, he’s from Canton, he’s from Macau, and he’s from Hong Kong. Also, he is a nice guy who lets my mother make decisions for him. Needless to say he drinks tea, too.

Tea is politically correct. Tea is everything. Tea cures cancer. Tea prevents cavities. Tea lowers cholesterol.

Tea is popular in Japan, England and other places where things are small, quirky and cute.

Coffee is championed by the Great Satan of the world, the U.S.A. Coffee is manly. You can nod your head and say “Ah. This is a strong cup of coffee — just how I like it.” And then you can snort at the air. And then you can spit on the ground. And those three things go well together. And those three things are manly things to do. Coffee is black when you don’t add anything to it. Used coffee grounds can be used for fuel. This one time in Boston a bunch of hooligans threw crates of tea into the water. Then they got drunk. Then they shot guns at British people. Then after all that they drank coffee. And then they thought it tasted good.

In the winter of 2000 I visited my dad. He was on a three week vacation from the school that he taught at. During my visit, even though he was off from work, every morning he woke up before 5 AM. He would walk down the stairs to the living room, where I slept. His first action of the day was to grind coffee beans.

“Goddamn this is annoying,” I would think to myself on that inflatable mattress. I couldn’t wait for the visit to end so that I could sleep somewhere else. But even then I knew not to expect much in the way of consideration from my father. After all, he drank coffee.

There was this French girl that I used to really dig. She was cute. She was smart. She was sweet. But for some reason she liked British culture a lot and drank tea. Those two things were bad enough but then she kept on insisting that I drink tea too. She told me how healthy tea was relative to coffee as if I had never considered such things — as if she were the first person to inform me of tea’s health benefits. And she would tell me about tea a lot, even during a movie or whatever.

“Look! I drink coffee alright! Fuck tea!”

Needless to say we are not friends any more. We don’t even talk.

People tell me that Coffee is unhealthy. People tell me that I should drink tea. But, coffee is more of an antidepressant than tea. That’s why I drink it. I drink coffee so that I won’t blow my head off. I’m not a doctor. I’m just a guy who drinks coffee. However, even I know that it doesn’t get much more unhealthy than blowing one’s head off.

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