This post is for my son Jack. Unlike Jack I have never quite understood the lure of Starbucks.Shock, horror, gasp! Java is certainly not essential to my ability to wake up and join the human race every day…much less help me when I need to burn the midnight oil.
It’s “Food Day” on the SciAm guest blog and bloggers around the network have also been sharing their thoughts on our relationship with coffee.
iStockphoto
The idea of the morning person aside, morning commuters seem to fall into one of two categories: the Caffeinated and the Un-caffeinated—the latter category being those who intend to consume coffee, but haven’t quite gotten their morning java yet. And they’re easily recognizable as such. The Caffeinated are bright-eyed and engaged with the day’s events already—they’re reading their morning papers, or checking email, or reading for pleasure. They’re sometimes armed with travel mugs or Ventis from their coffee shop of choice. They rattle the ice in the clear plastic beverage cups from mobile vendors on summer days. They walk a little faster in the early hours having long left last night behind.
This is not the case for the Un-Caffeinated. This group sleeps through the AM commute both on the commuter trains and the subway.They’re bleary eyed. Materials they intended to review lie unattended in their laps while they linger in the previous night. They walk more slowly up the stairs and are more irritable when you hurry them along—or hurry by them. They stroll, they trudge, they linger.
