My doctor wants me to quit drinking coffee. To be more precise, it isn’t the coffee that bothers him but the cream and sugar I put in the two cups I get at McDonald’s every day. He has dedicated himself to keeping me out of Avondale Cemetery for as long as possible and I am in no rush to go there myself, but we differ on our approaches to putting off the inevitable.
“Could you drink it without the cream and sugar?” he asked me during a recent visit.
“No,” was my answer after I carefully considered the prospect for 2.2 seconds.
Coffee without cream and sugar. Hmmm. May as well eat my breakfast cereal straight out of the box and forget the milk. Or bread right out of the bag, skip the margarine. Or the popsicles I ingest during heat waves. I’ll just scrape all that frozen flavoured water into the sink and lick the stick. Yum!
My doctor and I seem to agree, when we get together, that I need to do a better job of looking after my health. However, he appears mostly concerned with improving my physical well-being while I am practically obsessed with maintaining my mental health.
And here is what I get for the $1.35 I spend a day for a senior’s coffee at Mickey Dees. I go through the drivethrough each morning and joke with the servers at the windows. They all know me now and tolerate my ridiculous attempts at humour. But we have a brief connection and I like it.
Coffee in the holder, I then go sit in my car under one of the many shade trees in the restaurant parking lot and read on my phone all about the maniac American president.
In the afternoon, I take my empty cup back for a free refill but am forced to actually enter the restaurant to get it. No refills at the drivethrough. So I have gotten to know the inside staff as well.
“You’re working a lot of hours,” I said to one young woman behind the counter yesterday.
“Yes, I am here till 11 tonight,” she answered.
“Wow. Look at all the money you’re making,” I replied.
She smiled.
“Have a nice day,” she said.
Then just today, when I went for my second cup, the owner of McDonald’s, whom I have known for years, saw me come in and get into an unusually long lineup. She came right over.
“Just a refill?” she asked, and she took my cup over to the coffee maker.
“It’s great to have friends in high places,” I said to her when she returned with my coffee.
She smiled.
When I was still employed in my career, I had encounters with people all day long – fellow workers and the general public. But retired, I spend a lot of time alone. I don’t mind that but chatting up the McDonald’s staff a couple times a day is a big help.
I could save myself almost $500 a year on my coffee runs (not to mention the gas for my car) by making my own at home. But over the last almost 30 years now, we have had every style and brand of home coffee machine and I believe in all that time I have had the sum total of about a cup and half for all that investment. And that was about one cup too many. Other family members rely on the coffee makers and love what they produce but they all have jobs and are around people all the time.
When I left the doctor’s office the last time, I went up to the reception station and said to the several women busily working there, “The doctor says he has never seen such a perfect human specimen.” They laughed and one of them said, “You must get sick of your wife telling you how perfect you are.” I confirmed her assessment.
So, God bless my doctor. He is definitely on my side and I like him. But getting me to give up my coffees will be about as successful as I have been at getting my dog to quit barking at the poodle across the street.
When Avondale calls, that is one appointment I don’t expect to miss. And on my stone I want engraved: “Finally Quit Coffee!”
My doctor will be pleased.
©2017 Jim Hagarty
