I recently read an article which stated that coffee is bad for your health.
If you drink too much of it, it will make you grumpy and keep you awake at night.
Given the hard time other addictive substances are having in our health-conscious world nowadays, I feel fairly safe in predicting that coffee is about to go down the drain as a popular national drink.
It had been perking right along, so to speak, missing out on the terrible roasting that alcohol and tobacco have been getting all these years.
And now, in an instant, its reputation has bean run right into the ground.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that before long:
• the government will discover coffee and tax it till it costs about $5 a cup;
• the big behind-the-barn thrill for kids won’t be their first taste of booze or drag on a cigarette but instead, their first sip of coffee;
• coffee will be sold at special government shops with a big sign announcing COFFEE STORE over the front door;
• a lawyer will try to beat his client’s murder rap by arguing the poor schmuck was buzzed out on coffee when he pulled the trigger and never would have done it otherwise;
• proof of age will have to be shown in coffee shops and no one will be allowed a second cup;
• coffee ads on TV won’t be able to show people actually drinking coffee;
• the warning “Coffee Makes You Grouchy” will be printed on the label of every jar;
• police roadside devices known as coffalyzers will be used to measure the caffeine level of every speeder to see if they stayed too long at the restaurant;
• coffee drinking in the workplace will be banned and special consultants will help workers find new ways to spend the hours they normally spent sipping;
• where coffee had once been thought of in society as a great social glue and openly portrayed in the media as a harmless, friendship-promoting beverage, movie, TV and theatre directors will avoid it like the plague and actors will only ever be shown drinking lemonade or ginger ale;
• coffee addicts will be reviled in the world, much as drinkers and smokers are now.
And oh, what a grind life will be then.
©1990 Jim Hagarty
