Birdshit Coffee Blues.

7:00am, Tuesday, August 10th

Wake up. Where am I? Where’s that damn alarm? Wait. There is no alarm. FUCK! WHAT TIME IS IT? I over­slept, I slept through my alarm again, ohf­uckohfu­ckohfuck. What am I gonna tell the boss?

“Yeah, sry…

• there was a wreck on the interstate.
• I got a flat tire.
• I was up all night with family problems; I’d rather not talk about them.
• The roof of my house caved in last night.
• Our furnace exploded.

Yeah, so that’s why I’m late for work today…”

Or I guess I could just—wait. It’s 7:02. Is it nighttime? Did I just wake up from a nap? 7:03 on Thursday, August 5th. What day was it when I went to sleep? Wed­nes­day? Okay, so it was Wed­nes­day and now it’s Thurs­day. Not a nap. It’s morn­ing. Is it morn­ing? Check out­side. Yes, it’s morn­ing. Oh, oh okay. Good. So— Ahh…. I’m not late for work. I woke up on time, with­out my alarm. I am awe­some. I am Clock­work Man. 7:05am—BRRRRRIIII­INNNNNGGGG!!!! BBRRRRIII­IINNNNGGGG!!! Oh shit, where’s my alarm?

7:07am
GAH!!! MY LEG!!!! RUB IT OUT, RUB IT OUT!!! Eff­ing stu­pid leg cramps! Eff­ing stu­pid! Gah! That hurts! Did I twist it weird? Why do I have a leg cramp first thing upon wak­ing up? Oh, crap, this is pun­ish­ment. This is god’s way of tell­ing me he’s so not cool with what I did last night. Aw, hell.

Wait, I total­ly don’t be­lieve in god and even if I did, I don’t be­lieve that god would ex­act pun­ish­ment in the form of a morn­ing leg crap. OWIE! OWIE! OWIE! IT HURTS SO BAD! Oh­em­gee, this is a sign of dis­ease. I’m sick. Oh god, what kind of sick­ness causes mas­sive leg cramps? Toxo­plas­mo­sis? Oh fuck, I have toxo­plas­mo­sis! Wait, isn’t that cat AIDS? Oh god, do I have cat AIDS? No, that’s… no. Cat AIDS is just AIDS that a cat gets, and I don’t even have a cat. So what’s toxo­plas­mo­sis, then? Oh yeah! It’s cat-­scratch fever! Duh. Kitty-­poopoo-­scratch-­dis­ease. I to­tal­ly don’t have that. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, it must be leuk­emia, then. I have to quit smok­ing. My insur­ance hasn’t even kick­ed in yet! I’ve given my­self leuk­emia from smok­ing and this leg cramp is the first sign… of… wait. That doesn’t sound right. May­be this is just a leg cramp. What time is it? Not yet 10 past 7, my back up alarm hasn’t even beeped yet. I am Clockwork Man. Ooo! Imma make coffee!

7:13am
I can’t believe we’re out of coffee.
Okay, almost 7:15, need to be at work by 9am, in line for coffee by 8:45, leave the house by 8:20, I should be get­ting dressed by 8:00, in the shower by 7:45. It’s all about timing. Oh, hey, I can just heat up this iced coffee from yester­day. Yester­day? Day be­fore yester­day? What­ever, it’ll be fine. It’s all about timing. Timing, timing, timing… I am Clock­work Man. And now that I’ve found a tiny dash of morn­ing coffee, I have time for morn­ing face­book. 28 minutes of time, in fact…

7:22am
Note to self: heating old iced coffee is not de­lic­ious. Meh.

7:45am
Time to shower.

Ahhh…..

7:58am
Glance at the clock—Oh, heck yea, I’m good. Clock­work Man has struck againnnnnn­nnnrrrrrrrgggggb­blurrblugbha. oh. that was werrrr­ggggllluuu­mmmbbbub­hbubh. oh. shit. bathroom. now.

What the hell did I eat last night? Oh yeah, beer and bu­rritos. Maybe that iced coffee was old­er than I thoughghgh­gtlvlvvwulwul­wulbbulh. oy vey. Well, this was un­scheduled. Regard­less, Clock­work Man will per­sev­ere…

8:42am
Eff me, I should be at the coffee shop by now. Where the hell is that other sock?

8:49am
Ten min­utes to get to work. And this clock is 3 or 4 min­utes fast, so real­­ly, I’ve got plen­­ty of time. I can swing by the coffee shop, final­­ly get some g-d- coffee, get to work, and be at my desk be­fore the boss makes his morn­­ing round. I’ll tech­­nic­al­­ly be may­be a coup­le min­utes late, but no one will no­tice.
I am Clock­­work Man. I can make this work.

8:50am

Traffic? Are you kid­ding? There’s never traff­ic after 8:30; every­one’s at work. Do I still have time for coffee? Well, real­ly, do I have time for the bitch-head­ache I’ll have if I don’t get my coffee? No, sir. Clockwork Man can make this work.

8:55am
And there’s a red light. Coffee or not? Coffee or not? I mean, at this point I’m go­ing to be late regard­less, so… might as well have a tang­ible rea­son for it.

8:57am
There’s a line? There’s never a line. There’s never a line be­cause I’m never here this late. May­be I should leave.

9:01am
I should have left. This is beyond ridic—”Oh, hi, yes, double ameri­cano with hazel­nut and soy. Yeah, thanks.”

. . .
. . .

. . .

And now you finally have your coffee, it’s 9:05am and you’re un­deni­ably late for work, but you’re on your way and you have your coffee. You’re walk­ing across the mani­cured park­ing lot of the quasi-cor­por­ate coffee shop, smug­ly satis­fied with you­r­self be­cause even though this morn­­ing hasn’t gone as you’d hoped, you know no one will chal­lenge Clock­work Man on being 10 or 15 minutes late to work, and you’re just about to your car when *PLOOOP*… A bird shits in your coffee.

Before you can think you’ve poured off the top third—the con­tamin­ated third—of the liquid and you’re ask­ing your­self if the 5-second rule applies as well to bird­shit in coffee as it does to cookies on the kitchen floor. You know it doesn’t, but still hesi­tate, list­ing all the poss­ible dis­eases you can get from bird­shit in coffee, or at least the dis­eases you’ve con­vinced your­self you can get, the dis­eases you have to con­vince your­self you would get or you might just try to drink it any­way.

Birdshit definitely has cat AIDS.

You are Clockwork Man; you don’t need cat AIDS right now.

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