I just wanted some coffee

Our office provides free coffee and tea but it's not the best quality. I don't mind that much. I can tell the difference between the coffee at work and the coffee from a good shop (or even the coffee I make at home). But some of the folks in our software group decided they couldn't stand the free coffee any longer and decided to bring in their own coffee maker and take turns bringing in coffee. That was fine. I kept drinking the free stuff. I'm cheap like that.

But I always feel like an outsider - even though I'd been here longer than any of the others. So, in an effort to join in and be a regular guy, I said I'd take a turn at bringing coffee in. I noticed that when one fellow brought in a can of brand name coffee, some of the folks snickered (I thought it was fine) and when someone else brought in Green Mountain coffee (which I consider top of the line) and even that was panned. So, when it came to my turn I thought I'd better get what the more discriminating people were bringing in: Starbuck's.

I left early to stop by the Starbuck's shop in town. I was a little intimidated when I walked in and saw the variety of types of coffee that were available. I didn't have to wait long, though, a friendly person walked right up and asked if she could help me. "Yes, I'd like a pound of ground coffee, please. Nothing fancy, just plain, regular coffee. Not decaffeinated." I thought I'd given a complete description and would be on my way in a few minutes. "What continent are you thinking about?" she asked. I was surprised and assumed she somehow knew we had adopted our daughter from China. Had I mentioned that to someone who worked here that I hadn't seen? Maybe I was talking under my breath about a trip I'd taken to Africa or something. "What?" I said. "Would you like coffee from South America? Africa? Asia?" she answered. "Oh," I said, "I guess South America would be fine." That was the closest continent to us so it should be fresh, right? "Which country?" she asked.

Good grief! I suppose I should have cared but I just wanted to get to work. Colombia had the best advertisements so I went with Juan Valdez and said, "Colombian I suppose." "Very good," she said. Now I felt like a real connoisseur. These folks were well trained. I was now ready to leave comforted by the knowledge that I knew fine coffee. I started to ask how much a pound it would be when she asked, "How will you be brewing the coffee?" When I didn't answer right away she suggested, "Is this a preheated water type like the Bunn or is it a home coffee maker?" I told her is was just a home style coffee maker. Again I thought we were done but she asked, "What type of filter do you use? Do you use paper or gold?" A gold filter? Are you kidding? I didn't say that because, obviously, somebody did that. No one I knew but there must be such people or she wouldn't have asked. "No, just paper," I sighed. Now I felt really stupid. I felt like I'd just come in from the wild. I must be a coarse, ragged, dunderhead if I didn't know about these things. All this was going on right in my own town and I had no idea about it. I'd missed this all these years.

I finally got my coffee and paid enough for a good lunch for a pound of it. When I got to work, I wasn't ridiculed and the coffee was not the focus of laughter but somehow I still didn't feel like I fit in. Just the opposite. I felt like a guy who tries to dress up a little to impress his co-workers and then ties the tie in an odd way. I drank the coffee with them for a while but then went back to the free stuff. Trying to fit in made me feel even more of an outsider.