Creating a coffee demon

Having a routine is great. It keeps everything orderly and running smoothly with very few surprises. It also can become exceedingly boring and cause you to rebel. I drink coffee everyday. I’m not even sure if I like it, need it, or actually believe that caffeine can reverse skin damage from UV exposure (I truly read that somewhere), but I do know that I can’t come to my desk every morning without it. It’s a routine. I need to have a hot beverage. Sometimes, though, I want a cold beverage, or a beverage from a different place. That’s when the routine starts to suck. I get my coffee every morning from the same coffee cart man on the corner by my office. As would be expected after 4 years, when he sees me coming, he’s already preparing my coffee, because he knows what I want... because I get the same thing every day. Here are my problems with this current situation:

What if I want something else? I should be afforded the right to change my mind every once in a while, right? Do I run ahead and try to tell him really quickly that I want something else before he’s already making my drink? Do I hide behind another person as I approach his cart and attempt to catch him offguard? Or do I just go elsewhere, where they don’t already know my drink order before I speak...?

What if I want to go elsewhere? Sometimes Dunkin Donuts, sometimes Starbucks, sometimes I’m just in the mood to mix it up a bit. Until I see his cart. The second he sees me walking down the street, he’s going to make my drink... Which is an issue, since I’ve already purchased a drink, elsewhere. I have to avoid the cart. Meaning, I have to walk on the other side of the street and blend in or wear a disguise so he doesn’t spot me. One morning he fully saw me walking across the street and went to make my coffee. It made me so angry I decided to teach him a lesson and not go get it... That made him mad.

He gets mad. If I don’t patronize his cart for even one day, when I return, I get an evil stare and a “where were you?” Dood, chill out. It’s just coffee. It’s $1.25, I doubt my not showing up for one day is severely impacting your revenue. One week, I decided to try to save money and make my own hot cocoa at the office. The next Monday, I ran into a co-worker who told me that the coffee man was asking about me and why I wasn’t coming anymore. REALLY??

The same doesn’t apply to him. This morning, snow blowing everywhere... I really coulda used a coffee that was on my way to work. Yet that familiar stretch of block was sans coffee man. WTF? I had to come to work, and you don’t! I am so going to relish in my “where were you?” tomorrow morning... I am actually counting down the minutes til I can see his face. I hope he tells me he was at Dunkin Donuts...