041 - My Favorite Thing (A Meditation on Iced Tea)

Here's the tea.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything better than iced tea. That’s a steeped and brewed hot tea made cold, with additional ice to keep it cold, in a cup for drinking, in my hand for my enjoyment. I’m imagining a hot day. I’m imagining a man in need of refreshment, known as me. A man, still me, who has had a strenuous or laborious morning in the seeking rays of the sunshine and who, in the early afternoon, seeks to cool off. I’m imagining a quaint coffee shop that beckons to me and tries to sell me coffee, ew, and dog treats from a bowl on the counter, but you won’t fool me with those either, that’s not what I’m here for today. What I want is a soothing tonic for my summery woes, a balm for the effects of the solar whiplash dousing my body in fatigue and dehydration from 94 million miles away (not maliciously, mind you, but incessantly throughout the daytimes of the summer months). So no, again, to the dog treats at the counter, I’ll just have the iced tea on the menu: equal parts tea and ice and cup. No thank you on the green, no thank you on the passionfruit hibiscus blend, yes please to the unsweetened black tea iced. That what I want and what I need. The rare instance where the Venn Diagram of need and want form a perfect circle, into which the barista pours ice and then tea to the exact depth of the cup. And in my hand it is cold, like a handshake with the dead, which makes me feel alive. And in my mouth it is cold, like a French kiss with the dead, which makes me feel alive. And I say ahhh and sip ahhh and drink, then chug ahhh ahhhhhh.

As if the barista herself, my guardian angel, is holding back the sun from my brow like some sort of solar Hoover Dam. She wipes her still wet hand on her smock and says welcomes to my thank yous and squints as the day pours in through the windows behind me, then motions to the dog treats to which I say no thank you. “No.” she says moving her slowly warming, iced tea-less hand to emphasize the swiveled iPad beside the bowl of treats. “That’ll be $8.75.”

“For what?”

“The tea.”

“But that can’t be.” I say, my heart now cold.

“You said large. And with ice.”

And I look at the screen emitting a cantankerous blue light, presenting the illusion of buttons, begging me to choose between three roads I don’t want to go down.

“Please select a tip option, then sign with your finger.”

‘But my finger is cold.” I stammer in terror, as if freezing.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“That’s all that matters. That’s why I’m here. My fingers were hot. My whole body was too hot.” I show her my other hand.

“And this is the price of cooling.”

“This is the price of cooling.” I repeat under my breath.

And when my finger mashes against the weightiest of the fake buttons, my total becomes unfathomable, and I drop my iced tea. And though I minute ago I couldn’t think of anything better, now I can’t think of anything worse.

I vow never to think again.

Also, I am 6’5” with blue eyes and a trust fund. I have a job in finance. And I am incapable of love.