On Coffee

Coffee. It stunts your growth. It has absolutely no use whatsoever other than to keep you awake when you should be asleep. It doesn't even look appetizing - such a dark brown color that reminds us all of other...things. Of course, it's not addictive. Not at all. You just gulp it down every day with the blind numbness of a trolleybus. It doesn't leave you numb, though. The scalding taste burns your mouth, covering your tongue with its bitterness, and then you can feel it settling in your stomach like a warm hug.I once tried to drink coffee. It was absolutely disgusting, and I spat it out in to the sink. I even tried to add loads of sugar, like I do with most things, tea included, but that didn't change the taste at all. It's completely impossible to avoid the bitterness. How can people drink that stuff? What does it have that hot chocolate doesn't? It might be one of those damn drinks that you have to "grow into", like beer. I still don't like beer, though. In either case, I think I have a thing against coffee. Maybe because I live in a country where coffee is one of the staple foods.Italy is the land of coffee. There are more types of coffees then there are people, yet they all follow the same coffee schedule. A coffee in the morning, one after lunch, and one after dinner. And sometimes one in mid-morning, just to keep you going.I wonder what would happen if the world ran out of coffee. Half the world would fall down and finally get a good sound sleep, probably. The other half would die from withdrawal. And the other half of non-coffee drinkers like me would laugh. Was that too many halves? I guess I'm getting sleepy. Maybe I should try drink a coffee.