Maddie Soule

For years, I’ve held out. All the cool kids around me started doing it. I resisted, remembering my mom’s reminders not to cave to peer pressure at college. It felt a little hypocritical, because I knew she imbibed a couple of times a day.

Everyone seems to be doing coffee these days. They say it fuels them through the day or a late-night work session. Not me. No, no, no. I’m running on the caffeine of life — and a cup of English breakfast tea with lemon each morning.

This coffee thing, it’s deeper than a caffeine craving. It’s a lifestyle. While you wince as that first sip of black coffee hits your lips at breakfast, I’m sipping from my soothing mug of tranquility to cleanse my soul before the day. Is that extra jolt worth the price you pay?

With regards to the morning cup o’ joe, I can let it slide, though. To each their own, I guess. My grievances lie elsewhere: the afternoon coffee.

I love a good afternoon in a coffee shop as much as the next guy. Throw a couple bookshelves in back, post a sign up front with a quote that’s either somewhat liberal, mildly clever and funny or way too inspirational, and it really starts to feel homely. But, sometimes, my comrades-in-vibing make me feel unwelcome in what should be a wholesome space.

Why? What do I do to wrong these lovely folks? I speak my truth to power, that’s what I do. And my afternoon truth is almost always hot chocolate.

Laugh if you want. Sit on your high horse and ride on your saddle of superiority complex. But can you really look me — the hot-chocolate-drinking man behind the pen — in the eyes and tell me you’re not just a little bit jealous? 

Don’t you yearn for that sugary taste of childhood winters: when you wanted to catch each snowflake on the tip of your tongue, when you came back and your ma told you to take off your boots before you came inside, when your shirt stayed soggy for just a little too long so you warmed up by the fireplace and when tiny marshmallows floated on the surface of a beautiful chocolate sea? Unless you’re from California, you know you do.

So why not embrace it? Are you afraid of the shame? Have you fooled yourself into genuinely believing that your caramel macchiato makes you more sophisticated thanwith me? Really? It’s just a corporate hot chocolate, isn’t it. 

I don’t mean to come across as lacking empathy. We all get tired, and coffee can seem like such an easy fix. However, and I don’t mean to try to gaslight you, that caffeinated energy boost — it’s all in your head. 

You give me a cup of hot cocoa, I’m ready to go. I don’t care if it’s a sugar rush or my imagination that makes me feel that way. All that matters is that it gets the job done.

Listen, I’m not saying I’m never going to cave and join the dark side. After all, coffee is the consulting of drinks. We might think that it’s not for us, but, eventually, we all seem to realize that it’s in our future. I’m just seeing how long I can run on my youthful joie de vivre before I take to the mug to face the cruelties of the adult world.

Until then, it’s high time we re-normalized twenty year olds drinking hot chocolate, because I’m tired of your smirks and comments about how “it’s perfectly okay, all the third graders are drinking it, too.” Hot chocolate is delicious and coffee — excluding in ice cream form — seems pretty gross. 

So, yeah, I’ll have the hot chocolate, and you bet I want whipped cream on there, too.