Re: TIB: Another joke for Amy (and Kirsten, and her family)
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Re: TIB: Another joke for Amy (and Kirsten, and her family)
ummm... no. For my girlfriend. Sorry for the confusion... :| I don't
know how it got here... I even addressed it to her address...
>Kristen: Read and give to Amy. Thanks!
>
>This one is real interesting... I think it was a column in a news paper
>someone typed up. Its not exactly relay funny, but its kinda weird... :)
>
>---
>Decaf Poopacino
>BY DAVE BARRY
>
>I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money
>for coffee that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive
>tract. And you just know there are plenty of people who would.
>Specialty coffees are very popular these days, attracting millions of
>consumers, every single one of whom is standing in line ahead of me
>whenever I go to the coffee place at the airport to grab a quick cup
>on my way to catch a plane. These consumers are always ordering
>mutant beverages with names like "mocha-almond-honey vinaigrette
>lattespressacino," beverages that must be made one at a time via a
>lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean,
>three quarts of dairy products and what appears to be a small nuclear
>reactor. Meanwhile, back in the line, there is growing impatience
>among those of us who just want a plain old cup of coffee so that our
>brains will start working and we can remember what our full names are
>and why we are catching an airplane. We want to strike the
>lattespressacino people with our carry-on baggage and scream "GET OUT
>OF OUR WAY, YOU TRENDY GEEKS, AND LET US HAVE OUR COFFEE!" But of
>course we couldn't do anything that active until we've had our coffee.
> It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine
>medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently
>view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of
>thing does not happen to heroin addicts. I bet that when serious
>heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they do not tolerate
>waiting in line while some dilettante in front of them orders a
>hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles. The reason some of us
>need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes us alert. Of
>course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and,
>like any drug, it is a lot of fun. No! Wait! What I meant to say
>is: Like any drug, caffeine can have serious side effects if we
>ingest too much. This fact was first noticed in ancient Egypt when a
>group of workers, who were supposed to be making a birdbath, began
>drinking Egyptian coffee, which is very strong, and wound up
>constructing the pyramids. I myself developed the coffee habit in my
>early 20s, when, as a "cub" reporter for the Daily Local News in West
>Chester, Pa., I had to stay awake while writing phenomenally boring
>stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a vending
>machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all
>three liquids squirted out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty
>much the same. But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can
>do nothing useful before I've had several cups. (I can't do anything
>useful afterward, either; that's why I'm a columnist.)
>
>But here's my point: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I
>say this in light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo
>Bishop. He sent me an invitation he received from a local company to
>a "private tasting of the highly prized Luwak coffee," which "at $300
>a pound is one of the most expensive drinks in the world." The
>invitation states that this coffee is named for the luwak, a "member
>of the weasel family" that lives on the Island of Java and eats coffee
>berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a "natural
>fermentation" takes place, and the berry seeds-the coffee beans-come
>out of the luwak intact. The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted
>and sold to coffee connoisseurs. The invitation states: "We wish to
>pass along this once in a lifetime opportunity to taste such a
>rarity." Or, as Bo Bishop put it: "They're selling processed weasel
>doodoo for $300 a pound."
>
>I first thought this was a clever hoax designed to ridicule the coffee
>craze. Tragically, it is not. There really is a Luwak coffee. I know
>because I bought some from a specialty-coffee company in Atlanta. I
>paid $37.50 for two ounces of beans. I was expecting the beans to
>look exotic, considering where they'd been, but they looked like
>regular coffee beans. In fact, for a moment I was afraid that they
>were just regular beans, and that I was being ripped off. Then I
>thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might
>be ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a
>weasel?
>
>So anyway, I ground the beans up and brewed the coffee and drank some.
> You know how sometimes, when you're really skeptical about something,
>but then you finally try it, you discover that it's really good, way
>better than you would have thought possible? This is not the case with
>Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee, in my opinion, tastes like somebody washed
>a dead cat in it. But I predict it's going to be popular anyway,
>because it's expensive. One of these days, the people in front of me
>at the airport coffee place are going to be ordering decaf poopacino.
>I'm thinking of switching to heroin.