I Take My Globalisation With Two Sugars
I’m strictly not a slave to the ways of coffee.
Coffee was never something I’ve taken a particular interest in - in fact, my incompetence at ordering brunch-related beverages has become quite well known. Deciding one day to face my fears, I hazarded a step into a Starbucks outlet, and as if the coffee-related hustle and bustle wasn’t enough; when I was screamed at for my order, I freaked out at the menu and fled with arms flailing. (In my highly anxious and confused state, every drink on the menu had appeared to read LOSERCHINO).
Yet this has all quite recently changed. I can now order a skim caramel latte-chino and smirk at other coffee wannabes ordering mere flat whites.
It was around one month ago when I was asked by someone at my work to go and grab a coffee for them. I didn’t mind, it’s good to get out of the office. The clincher is that they wanted me to go to Gloria Jean’s Coffees to purchase the coffee in question.
Thus began my downfall.
Tentatively, I purchased a Mocha Truffle for myself - I figured it wouldn’t hurt. But the highly pleasurable, velvety taste sensation which wound its way down my gullet had me crying “Dude!”
And nobody’s exclaimed “Dude!” since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the height of style!
Fueled by a “Frequent Sipper” card which only rewarded me with yet more coffee, not even the apathetic uni students who manned the coffee machines put me off. One girl’s recently begun sardonically winking at me after I pay for my coffee every morning - despite the fact that her eye resembles a clenching anus when she executes this contraction of muscles, it only seems to spur me on further.
There is an enormous burden of guilt married to this new situation. I am full aware that Gloria Jean’s Coffees are simply a less sinister version of Starbucks.
But I justify that by reminding myself Australia is their second biggest market, which means Gloria must really like it here. Good on her. Top sheila.
Others at my work do not share my blind, mindless devotion to Ms Jean, however. I’ve attempted to explain that I’ve tried so many coffees before, but nothing compares to my sweet darling Gloria’s Mocha Truffle Cup of Joy. They’ve been guilt-tripping me into sampling other coffees from locally-owned businesses, but nothing can match the taste of the coffee I’ve now grown to love.
It certainly doesn’t help that my seating arrangement at work involves sitting opposite someone who’s now on their third copy of No Logo due to loving wear and tear. Every morning I’m reminded of the poor coffee bean workers in the fields of the third world, and what a terrible thing Gloria Jean is.
I really do my best to nod sympathetically and bury the consequences of my actions deep into my subconscious, seriously.
But I’ve never been so excited about something since I first rode the Gravitron as a child. Desperately, I’ve searched for a portrait of this wonderful woman on the net. Not even her official website seems to offer an pictures of her.
I dearly hope that she’s not some fictional character concocted by a marketing department. If I’m gobbling at the teat of a famous coffee dispensing woman on a daily basis, I feel it’s only my right to know what she looks like.
The anguish and agony of guzzling such delicious delights without even knowing the beautiful face who created them is causing me vast distress.
“Just drink other coffee for a week,” demands my No Logo friend.
“I can’t,” I whimper. “I need to know what Gloria looks like. This problem is beginning to make me seriously question my sexuality.”
“You’ve just been drinking that… that.. cancer in coffee form for so long, that you don’t know what real coffee tastes like,” she snaps.
And it’s true. I know that Gloria Jean’s coffees are as bad as any food or drink whose packaging features all three primary colours, but I simply can’t stop.
And neither can my No Logo friend, it seems: after deciding to work outside of my normal roster on a Saturday, I arrived at my desk to find her secretly sipping at a Gloria Jean coffee herself.
We share the secret love like a (coffee-breath tinged) whisper; in the midst of confusion over our idol’s identity.