On the way home from pushing my kid out on the sidewalk with instructions to learn stuff and get a good job so I don�t have to stay in a really crappy old folk�s home, I decided, what the hell, I�d treat myself to a Caf� Latte. I have one option in where to get my liquid gold, and that�s Starbucks. I mean, it�s that or a Styrofoam cup of yesterdays Joe at the Texaco, complete with unidentifiable floating objects. We won�t go into how I�d have to endure every old farming fart within 20 miles. Don�t get me wrong, I know they are just cool old guys, but damnit, I need my coffee before I can put on that, �How are ya doin� fella?� face, or a �Mornin�� even in some severe cases. Just let me alone while I savor that moment as cream and sugar slowly dissolve into my morning medication, ok? After I�ve made several of the obligatorily, �Damn that�s hot (or cold as the case might be)�, I�ll straighten up and make the realization that there are others in the world. I�ll then focus on you with squinted eye, make recollection of your name, and carry on with the social prerequisites of taking on yet another day in paradise.

There were about ten people in line when I arrived at the coffee house. All them looked as beaten and drug out as I. I took a few moments to ponder how many suicides are completed in the early morning. I wondered how many were put off until after that first cup at least.

�Can I help you sir?� the high-school aged server asked, completely derailing my train of thought. He sounded a little perturbed, like people do when they have had to ask to ask you something twice. �I�m sorry?� I replied, and even as the words were escaping my mouth I regretted saying them, all too well knowing what the response would be. He cleared his throat, obviously to show his displeasure with me, while not seeming completely asinine in front of his college aged boss. I ordered my latte, paid the outrageous fee and proceeded down the bar to where I was told I would find my �stuff�, meaning condiments. I decided not to bring his attention to the fact that a Latte is espresso and steamed milk, and therefore requires no cream. I decided not to make a show of myself, not to mention furthering enflaming his apparent displeasure, and meandered down to get my �stuff�. The little girl at the end of the bar handed me my latte with a huge superficial �Thank you for stopping in Starbucks today Sir!� smile. It�s okay though, like Pavlov�s dogs, my subconscious has been trained to realize that when it hears the girl say thank you, it knows that coffee is on the way. I always return a smile, while thinking aloud only to myself, �coffee, coffee, coffee�.

I took a corner table and placed my back against the wall. As I absent mindedly swirled the tiny Popsicle-like stirring stick in slow deliberate circles, the word stuff kept floating through my head. Suddenly I was repeating almost word for word the comedian George Carlin�s routine, �A place for my stuff�. I had nearly reached the part where you go away on vacation and need �Tiny versions of your stuff to go with you�, when a grocery cart bumped into me. I looked up to make eye contact with a very desperate mother and child. She had the little girl in the part of the buggy where the groceries go, and her groceries where the kid should go. It always looks like the kid is in jail when they do this, or does to me anyway.

It seemed that the mother had �had� to interrupt her shopping to get her child to calm down. The problem, she volunteered without provocation or benefit of query, was that she had �forgotten the doughnut�. �I see.� I said, trying to make the connection between a doughnut and her kids having a fit. I quickly figured out the doughnuts part in this story as I watched in horror as she shoved an entire glazed devil�s food doughnut into what possibly could not have been an eight month old child�s mouth! I coughed and all but gagged on my latte.

�Oh its okay� she said, �I do this all the time. It�s the only way I can get any shopping done.� I peered into the cart, the part where the kid is supposed to go, and took a quick inventory of her shopping. There was milk, animal crackers, cookies, pudding, cake mixes, eggs, Pop-Tarts and all kinds of sugar infested things. Suddenly the whole picture began to come together. This was a fully grown sugar junkie turning her child into a copy of herself. The child was already bouncing against the sides of the cart, in what looked to me like an apparent Pop-Tart overdose, and she�s cramming a doughnut into her mouth, and the kids! All the while she is downing huge gulps of steamed milk from a mug the size of a small country. That�s when it happened, and as God as my witness, I wish I had never thought it, let alone actually said it! It just came right on out as if it had a life of its own.

�Now there�s a chemical dependence waiting to happen.�

�Oh my God,� I thought, �I can�t believe I just said that! I just said that to a woman whom I have never met before in my entire life!� This woman just sits down next to me in the coffee shop, taking a break from her morning shopping and I just absolutely show my ass! She stops talking and just looks at me. Then she blinks. The kid is looking at me with half a doughnut hanging out of her mouth, and her mother says, �Excuse me?� I began back-peddling as fast as I could, but it was too late. Now I fully expected for this lady to do one of two things. One, simply get up and leave. Secondly was to just let me have it, and I don�t mean a doughnut either! I was fully prepared to receive the wrath of P.O.F. (Pissed off Female). Here is where it gets really strange.

This woman begins staring at her kid. I�m looking at the lady who is looking at this kid with half a doughnut hanging out of her face. We sit this way for a while, me expecting any second to receive my just reward for earlier said stupidity, and she simply staring at her kid. After several long moments that seemed like a lifetime to me, she began. I winced.

�You know?� she began, �I�ve been thinking about that lately. It�s really far out (yes, she used that phrase) that you should mention it.� I told her how sorry I was, and that I had no business whatsoever telling her something like that. I told her that I just thought she was exposing her very young child to an incredibly high amount of sugar, but that even that was no reason to be rude to her the way I was. I said I was sorry about a million times I think. Suddenly she started crying. �Oh my god I am so sorry lady!� �Don�t be�, she said through tears. �I binge�, she wearily told me, �and then I throw up. My husband called me fatty after the baby was born, and I thought he would leave me.� She went on to tell me how and when she did it, but didn�t even realize the effect it was having on her child. I sat there, unbelieving that this was occurring to me. I cannot believe that I just happened to want a latte this morning and in the process I, very rudely I might add, force another human to revisit issues that might otherwise have gone unchecked. Mind you, dear reader, I take no credit here whatsoever in bringing this to light for this woman, I simply was the catalyst she needed for self examination. In the end, I bid her good luck, and reminded her again that if her husband was really that superficial, she might in the end need to consider what was best for her child as well as herself. I didn�t tell her to leave him at all. I told her to talk at length about how he had made her feel. I really didn�t suggest telling him about the bingeing, at least, not immediately anyway. We actually hugged as we said goodbye. I walked slowly out of there knowing all too well that I would never view the coffee house the same again. Ya know, all I ever wanted was my coffee.

I am such an imbecile.