Laugh Out Loud - My First Attempt at Coffee🤦🏽‍♀️

Embarrassing short story from—never mind, I won’t say when because it’s too embarrassing.

So one day, after watching my parents and older brother enjoying coffee for ages, I decided to give it a try. There was Canadian French vanilla and American French vanilla in the cabinet. Having seen my mom go crazy over the Canadian one, I went for it. The instructions on the side were exactly like those of my favorite hot beverage: hot chocolate.

“Sweet!” I said to myself. “This’ll be a piece of cake.”

But when I opened the container and tried to spoon out the French vanilla, I realized it was stuck fast to the bottom. It hadn’t expired yet…it was just—stuck. Disappointed, I put it back and got out the American one. After a quick glance over the instructions (TOO quick for me to sufficiently understand what they said) I heated a cup of milk and dumped two heaped teaspoons of the coffee into it. I did NOT remember my mom saying that French vanilla is VERY different from regular coffee, or my brother mentioning how he didn’t like the American French vanilla as much as the Canadian one because it was too similar to regular coffee. All I noticed was that the coffee didn’t dissolve into the milk like my hot chocolate did.

“Come one, what’s wrong with it?” I muttered, stirring the beverage so furiously it almost spilled. “Oh! I know! Maybe the milk isn’t warm enough.”

So I stuffed the mug back in the microwave for another half a minute and—it was still the same.

“Ugh, how does this thing work? Everyone makes it look so easy.”

Then I got a brainwave to put the coffee on the stove. I let it stay there for a few minutes and then stirred it and—

“For crying out loud, WHY WON’T IT CHANGE?!?”

Just as I was about to give up and assume I would never figure out how coffee works, I remembered something. Every time I saw my dad make coffee, he poured it from a pot into his cup through a sieve that caught the coffee particles.

“Duh, I knew that.” I poured the coffee through a small sieve and into my mug, took a tentative sip, and made a face. “Gee, this is so bitter. So much for French vanilla.”

I tried sweetening it with some hot chocolate and milk. It didn’t help much. It was then that I remembered something else. When people ordered this awful-tasting stuff from Starbucks and whatnot, they always described how they wanted it made. And some people liked it strong.

Immediately I thought of the two giant spoons of coffee I’d put in my milk.

Moral of the story? The next morning I drank hot chocolate.

~shellyK