I Hate Coffee

 It was my job to fetch my mom a cup of coffee. I didn’t see a throne in the family room, but she ordered me about like she was royalty.  I have no idea how old I was when I was first summoned, but I do remember the last. Boy, do I.

  When I was quite small, the coffee percolator was always burping. My mom had a Corning Ware blue and white percolator. I have to admit that I enjoyed the aroma of the brewing coffee. Maxwell House. Good to the last drop. My mom was always drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. At first I was just bringing her coffee, but when I got older, she taught me how to change the filter and get a new pot brewing. She told me the amount of coffee to scoop. If I went over or under, she let me know.

  I thought I was intelligent, but I was a coffee moron. Moronic because I should have made really bad coffee and then she would fire me as the coffee girl. Soon, I was bringing coffee to my parent’s company in the evenings. “Vickie made the coffee.” My mom would tell their guests. I guess she thought that praise begat performance. Not in my little short-haired head. I was getting sick of it.

  Not only did I have to serve the guests, but they sat in the family room, where the tv was. So, I would sometimes sit, watching tv, waiting for the next coffee run. I was also fascinated by Betty Edward’s moles.  I had never seen so many huge moles on a person’s face and neck in all my life. I still remember every outline of that woman’s face. She was hard looking and moley. Like moles on top of moles. I just can not expand on that enough. They lived a couple of blocks away, and when they came to visit, they would stay for hours. I don’t know how many cups of coffee I brought everyone. My dad got his own. I love my dad.

 Anywho, when I was a teen-ager, I was tired of doing stuff and my sister didn’t have to do anything. Ok, I really didn’t have to do much at all. I had to  run the vaccuum cleaner through the house and bring coffee. I always folded towels and was the official laundry chute girl. I think my sister had to sleep in her bed. That’s about all I remember her doing. She slept in her bed and ate puffa puffa rice out of a bag….and sometimes sat with brown sugar and ate that. Just brown sugar. My sister was three years younger than me, which is a huge age gap when you are a tween or teen-ager.

 One day, my mom yelled for me to get her coffee. She never asked me. She told me. I vowed I would never tell someone to do something. And I never have. I ask, “Would you mind….” or “Could you do me a favor and….”  I hate imposing on people. My ex always told me to bring him stuff. Never asked. I never got an Employee of the Month plaque from my mom or my husband.

Anyway, back to my mom. She yelled for me to get her coffee while I was on the phone. So, I didn’t come right away or answer her. I kept talking on the phone. She yelled several more times, and I don’t know why, but it just really pissed me off. I think I was like 14 at the time. So, I said my goodbye and hung up the phone, went into the kitchen and poured her a cup of coffee and walked slowly with it out into the family room like I had done hundreds of times before. And then I fake tripped right in front of her.

  She screamed as the make believe coffee didn’t splatter all over her.  She put up her arms to cover herself from the invisible scalding second-degree burns she would receive all over her face and neck had there been coffee in the mug.

 I tripped with an empty coffee mug.

Oh, Dear God, not good. She hit me and sent me to my room. I will never forget the look on her face as I tripped in front of her. I was a good little actress. She was a better Joan Crawford. My dad looked like he was ready to die laughing. He couldn’t stand my mom. She was a rolling-pin wife and he did whatever she said.

Mommy dearest didn’t talk to me for a couple of days and I wasn’t allowed to go to a pajama party that weekend.

But, she never asked me to bring her a cup of coffee ever again.

And that made it good to the last drop.