Coffee Anyone?

I push the button on the coffee machine and it whirs into life.

"Christian Fletcher," comes Sam's voice from the other room.

Sure, it is my third cup and it isn't yet 9.30am.

"So, is that a no from you?"

"Slow down."

"Are you saying you don't want one."

"Seriously, you are drinking too much coffee."

"Do you want one?"

"Yes."

And there it is.

It always makes me laugh. Sam just about always says yes, no matter what he has said before.

The worlds greatest invention, coffee. Why would one deny oneself, I ask you?

That and the mute button, the two single greatest achievements of mankind. Oh yes, there are some pretty amazing medical achievements, blah, blah, blah, but get back to me when I need a new liver, or a course of chemo and we’ll discuss it then.

My single nicest dream, is to be drinking coffee out in public and being able to use the mute button on the annoying people. Oh, you know the types, the ones who bring their sticky finger kids along, or those who occupy a table alone but insist on talking on their mobile phone so all can hear, the ones who talk too loud in the group in that look-at-me-look-at-me kind of way, the inane laughers, the screamers. You know the types who are definitely seen and heard.

I was once in a coffee shop drinking a lovely morning coffee and a woman had a baby that wouldn’t stop crying, finally when our eyes met, I spoke up, “Couldn’t you take that some place else?”

Well, she didn’t half lose her shit as she gathered her belongings and vacated the establishment.

“You don’t know what it’s like…”

I’ve got a fairly good understanding over the last half an hour, I thought.

“You are terrible!”

And yet I am not the one destroying everyone’s morning.

“How dare you.”

I am pretty much saying the same thing to you.

Now if I’d had a mute button on that occasion. Heaven.

After she had slammed the café door on her way out, the silence was golden. And we were all left to contemplate life with coffee in hand sans her noisy little sprog.