It's All About the Coffee.

Dec 26, 2007 - 13:31 PM PST

Initially, it was the coffee mug; the entire day was thrown off because of that. Paula didn’t let her use her usual coffee mug. Any semblance of routine, and therefore: comfort, was completely thwarted because of this.
Then, the coffee was different; all because it was a “special occasion”.
There was no reason for the coffee to be different. There was no reason to insist she use a different mug. There was no reason for that particular morning tradition to be any different from any other day. Half asleep and bleary eyed Maribel moved away from the cupboard and picked up a festive mug off the table Paula had so meticulously set for the occasion. She didn’t notice the coffee was different until after she tasted it. There was sugar and cream swirling in the hot liquid and it tasted different.
“What is this?” she whispered to Louis.
“I believe its Dunkin Donuts,” he whispered back.
She looked sadly at the mug then up at him. A look of worry and annoyance set itself upon her face; she looked as if she were going to cry.
“How’s the coffee? Is it strong enough?” asked Paula brightly.
“Yah,” she answered slowly. “It’s strong enough.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Paula. “Is it bad?”
“Ah, no,” Maribel answered cautiously.
“OK!”
Paula returned to the griddle where she was cooking whole wheat pancakes. Maribel looked back at Louis who just shrugged at her and poured himself a mug of coffee.
“Why?” she whined. She knew Louis was silently telling her to let it go, but she just couldn’t. Not yet.
“She doesn’t even drink coffee. Why does she do this?”
Louis just shrugged again and stirred in some sugar.
She let out a little pathetic noise and took another pained sip of the morning-ruiner coffee. It was intelligible to her that Paula would even want to purchase coffee. She didn’t drink it. The woman just did not consume the stuff, so why would she go out and purchase special coffee for the day? It made complete and utter sense that she wouldn’t think to consult someone who did drink the stuff as to what to buy, but it did not make any sense for her to go out and purchase two one pound bags of beans – especially since she condemned the consumption of the stuff.
Coffee just wasn’t Paula’s thing. It was Maribel’s thing. It was Louis’ thing. It was Simone’s thing. It was Francesca’s thing. It was not Paula’s thing. It was not Lucia’s thing, either. But Lucia had the smarts to know that it wasn’t her thing and therefore not do anything about it. “Leave the coffee to the coffee addicts,” was Lucia’s take on the situation. But Paula seemed to think that because she used to drink the stuff that she had some know-how about it.
But, typical Paula, she didn’t ask anyone what kind of coffee would be special and different and accepted by the caffeine addicts. A bag of Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Green Mountain, even, anything but Dunkin Donuts. Not a single one of the coffee drinkers would ever think to themselves, “Hey, I want some coffee. Let’s go to Dunkin Donuts.” In fact, most of them would probably go to the coffee station at the grocery store before they would go to Dunkin Donuts.

I’m not saying Dunkin Donuts has bad coffee. Maribel would blog later. I just don’t like the taste of it. Neither does Simone or Francesca! None of us like it! To Louis it seems coffee is coffee no matter what it tastes like – but he’s different. He’s a dude. They’re like that!
I’m just saying that you can’t like everything. And none of us actually like Dunkin Donuts coffee. I know they’re trying to move from being a doughnut shop to a coffee AND doughnut joint, however, the only coffee I will drink there is a hazelnut latté! Cause it doesn’t taste like their original blend! A.k.a. Crap!

Two nights before the morning-of-terrible-coffee, Paula had asked Maribel a simple question. She gave a simple answer. She thought it was simple enough, apparently Paula didn’t agree.
“Hey, do you like French Vanilla?” Paula asked her holding a pound bag of French Vanilla Dunkin Donuts coffee.
“No,” she answered frankly and honestly.
“OH.” Paula sounded like a balloon being popped and gave her a somewhat indiscernible look.
She didn’t feel guilty or sorry in any way. It wasn’t as if she was saying that to be contrary – Maribel merely did not care for French Vanilla coffee at all.
Since it was pretty clear that Paula didn’t have anything else to add, she turned back to the newspaper article she was reading and paid little attention to what was going on in the other part of the kitchen. A few minutes later Paula was speaking again.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Do you like Hazelnut?” she asked. She was holding another bag of coffee that wasn’t Dunkin Donuts. It looked like one of those gourmet coffees that one usually found in those gift baskets along side some old cheese, bad sausage and stale crackers.
“Coffee? Yah, I do. But I don’t think Louis does,” she added knowing that Paula was thinking of the ‘special breakfast’.
Louis walked into the room.
“Do you like Hazelnut coffee, Louis?” Paula asked him.
“No, I don’t,” he said unaware of what was already brewing and continued on to the refrigerator.
Paula set the gourmet, vacuum packed bag of Hazelnut coffee back on the counter and turned her attention to something else. The conversation was clearly over, but it wasn’t about to leave them, not yet.

“I tried the French Vanilla earlier,” whispered Francesca sitting at the table next to Maribel.
“And?”
Francesca shook her head.
“No good.”
“Great,” she groaned.
Paula was still cooking the pancakes. Something she never did, either.
“You realize we’re stuck with this coffee now, right?” said Maribel quietly.
Francesca just kind of nodded warily.

Soon Simone joined them and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“What is this?” she asked indicating the coffee pot.
“Dunkin Donuts original blend!” said Paula proudly and cheerily.
“Oh,” said Simone. “Do we still have eggnog?”
“Yah,” said Maribel.
“You’re putting eggnog in your coffee?” asked Louis incredulously.
“Yah, we did it the other night,” said Maribel.
“I usually get eggnog coffee at the Coffee Co. on my way to work. They have it special in the month of December. So Mari and I decided to try making it with actual eggnog instead of eggnog flavored coffee.”
“Is it good?” asked Francesca.
“Yah. You should try it,” said Maribel archly.
Francesca caught her drift and gave her a look telling her to stop it.
Lucia, who had been fiddling with a hot chocolate heater-slash-mixer machine, finally announced that it was ready and poured a cup for Paula and herself and unknowingly diverted Paula’s attention from a possible impending argument.
Mirabel, the major Coffee Connoisseur of the household, did not finish her first cup of coffee that morning. Nor did she have another one all day, which led to her being cranky and somewhat snappish.
She later apologized for being annoying. However, it wasn’t the worst holiday ever. The exchange of gifts was pleasant and happy. The main meal was delightful. The post-eating old movie watching slash post-eating nap was cozy and comfortable. While all of this was great and wonderful, even, Maribel kept coming back to the coffee in her mind. She couldn’t shake it. She followed Louis’ lead and didn’t let herself think about it too much that day. But the next morning, Mirabel got up, put on a pot of coffee using the can of Maxwell House they’d been working on and the previous morning came flooding back.
Paula and her coffee. Why did she do it? Never mind, Maribel knew why she did it. She was trying to be nice. But, in her usual Paula way, she didn’t think things through. Paula was famous for acting before she thought about anything. This was, perhaps, why Maribel famously over thoughtbefore acting. She wasn’t doing anything to be annoying. She just was. It was her personality. It was the fact that she didn’t think generally, she just did things and if they were the wrong thing and you called Paula on it, she would go completely bi-polar on you and turn into a whiny doubly irritating mass of tears and irrationality.
She took any kind of ‘negative’ comment as pure negative criticism. Had anyone actually verbalized their dislike of the coffee meltdown would have ensued. And it’s not a slur against her. Just the coffee. But because she is the one who was responsible for it would mean, in her mind, that she was deficient. It wasn’t entirely her fault she didn’t know what kinds of coffee people drank, or enjoyed. Although, one could argue, Maribel thought, in a way is was since she never asked anyone what they liked or wanted.
More than anything it was a kind of vague annoyance when Paula did things like this. It had been going on for so long that most of them ignored it when it did happen. Like a dull ache that you just don’t get checked out by a doctor; it isn’t actually bothersome and you’re not really sure when it started. Maribel often wished she could do something about it, but she was not exactly ready to be the one to confront Paula about her vaguely, semi-annoying habits that, as annoying as they were, were born out of some sort of intended kindness.
It was actually an extremely difficult thing to explain to other people. Inevitably Maribel ended up sounding like a colossal bitch. And Paula wasn’t exactly a bitch. She was just mildly irritating and could be a real jerk when she was annoyed. Somehow they’d always let her slide.
Perhaps it was because she was the physical embodiment of that one nursery rhyme: When she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid. Maribel used to think that she fit that mold. But it wasn’t her. It was Paula. And because when she was good, she was so dang good, the let the bad times slide. Even though it was the bad times that they remembered the most.
Maribel breathed deeply taking in the rich aroma of the Maxwell House Colombian Roast as it drip, drip, dripped into the pot. Nothing could put Maribel in a better mood than the slightly bitter, yet beautiful aroma of coffee. It was the perfect beverage for Maribel. She often joked that Coffee was her name in drink form. Both bitter and beautiful, coffee could have been derived from the same names as ‘Maribel’ – ‘Mary’ meaning ‘bitter’ and ‘Belle’ meaning ‘beauty’. And Maribel was just that: a bitter beauty. She was five feet five inches, had long wavy auburn hair, bright green eyes and pale, milky white skin and a pretty average, slightly athletic body. Had she lived in another time, in Europe, she would have had painters desiring to paint her portrait.
As classically beautiful as she was, there was a sarcastic bitter streak running through Maribel. She could be cold and cruel and she knew it and tried to avoid it when dealing with family, most especially Paula. Paula was the type of person who could dish it out but couldn’t take it. Maribel, on the other hand, could dish it out and take it with the best of them. But she could be hurtful in the same way Paula could be annoying. She generally didn’t mean it. Something would slip out unintentionally or come across much more mean than it was actually meant. And she wouldn’t notice because a mean comment like that wouldn’t have affected her. She often forgot that it would affect other people.
But coffee. Coffee was a well-known remedy for most of Maribel’s mistaken moments. If she could just get her coffee the way she liked it when she wanted it, then everything was just dandy. She was pleasantly sarcastic instead of meanly sarcastic. People enjoyed her company when she was like that. Maribel enjoyed her own company when she was like that. But Dunkin Donuts coffee was not the way to make Fun Maribel happen. How was she going to get rid of the stuff?
Suddenly the phone rang.
“Good morning, Manser residence. Maribel speaking.”
“Maribel! Good morning!” cried a familiar voice.
“Hey, Mrs. Winslow. Merry Christmas.”
Janice Winslow lived two houses down with her husband and three children. Maribel and Simone used to babysit for them when they were still too young to be left alone. Now they were in high school and college.
“Merry Christmas, Maribel. This might sound odd, but you drink coffee, right? You used to be pretty partial to Starbucks, if I remember correctly? I remember seeing you and Simone down there all the time.”
“Yah, Simone and I both worked there in high school.”
“Ok, this might be weird, but Mr. Winslow and I got two one pound bags of the Christmas Blend from some co-workers and we tried it, but we just don’t like it.”
“You never really were partial to any Starbucks, were you?”
“Well, I must admit I like their peppermint mocha latté, but I do not care for their regular coffee. We’re pretty low-key people, aren’t we? We’d prefer Dunkin Donuts any day! So, would you like the Christmas Blend? I mean, I feel bad about just giving it away, but we’re just not going to drink it!”
Janice Winslow sounded so apologetic and Maribel started laughing.
“What is it, dear?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Winslow. It’s just your timing is impeccable. How about this, how about we trade? Would that work for you? That way you won’t have to feel guilty about giving it away? I will give you two one pound bags of Dunkin Donuts coffee, one is Original Blend, the other is French Vanilla, both open, but brand new, in exchange for your two bags of Starbucks’ Christmas Blend?”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Just like you won’t drink the Starbucks, we won’t drink these.”
“Perfect. I’ll send Johnny right over with it!”
“I’ll meet him at the kitchen door.”

Maribel hung up the phone and turned, extremely satisfied, back to her pot of Maxwell House. She spooned some sugar into her usual mug, poured the coffee over it and stirred before adding her cream. She held the steaming mug up to her face and breathed deeply before taking a sip of the beautiful elixir.
She set the mug on the counter and removed the Dunkin Donuts from the cupboard above the coffee maker and smiled as she heard a quick rap on the back door. Johnny Winslow was there, Starbucks coffee in hand, ready for the early morning exchange.
Maribel grinned widely and opened the door.