Life List: Learn to Like Coffee

I've been anti-coffee for years. I don't like bitter flavors and I don't like hot drinks and I don't have the patience to wait around for something to brew. For a short time, I couldn't even stand the smell of the ground beans on the coffee aisle at the grocery store. However, coffee has become a statement in this country, much the same way that tea is an institution in the UK and Ireland. There is nothing that can't be solved with a cup of tea (there) or a cup of coffee (here). There's also the fact that every time someone offered me coffee and I refused, they acted like I was crazy or had an immature palate. Plus, I'm a sucker for accessories, and coffee shops always have great mugs, etc. So I decided that I'd either have to learn to like it, or suck it up and drink it even if I didn't.

Step 1. The coffee make at work makes surprisingly good coffee (for coffee). When I switched to a night schedule, the first few nights I really needed the caffeine boost to get me through, and in the beginning, I never had money for the soda machine. I'd mix half a cup of coffee with half a cup of milk and more sugar than any person has a right to ingest after the age of 10. Every week I upped the coffee and cut down on the milk (and after that first night switched to Splenda). So now my coffee looks (and tastes) more like coffee and less like a milkshake.

Step 2. Justin has wanted a coffee maker for years. We had one for awhile, but I (accidentally, I swear!) broke the pot and we had to throw the whole mess away. A couple of weeks ago, we ordered a Keurig. It makes one cup of coffee at a time, so I don't have to worry about scorched coffee sitting around in the kitchen, and I don't have to wash a pot. As an added bonus, it brews the coffee in individual pods (k cups!), so I never have to clean up coffee grounds. (Bleh.) It brews in about 2 minutes, and is -exactly- the right temperature, so I don't have to wait for the coffee to cool off enough to drink.
There are hundreds of flavors of coffee, and K cups that make hot cocoa and various sorts of teas. It's very fancy. I like Timothy's Donut Blend coffee with Italian cream flavored creamer and I feel just like a grown up.