Lunch - Turkey and cheese sandwich on a plain bagel with cream cheese
Dinner - 2-4-1 pepperoni pizza at Maf's
Beverages
If we’re being honest, as Americans, making it through a typical workday is all about going from one beverage to the next. We use beverages as a sort of liquid holiday; a vacation from reality.
I’d say 90% of Americans start their day with a cup of coffee. And I say coffee in the general sense; meaning all inclusive of lattes, espressos, frappes and anything of the sort. Cause it’s all the same to me, ok?
We use “coffee” as our morning ritual of optimism. *Sips freshly brewed steaming alma matter coffee mug* “Ahhh… I can do it. I can make today happen. I got this!” *baby begins crying and phone begins to ring* “…Well, at least I got my coffee...”
You can say that coffee helps you wake up, gives you energy, makes you regular, or whatever, but more than anything it just gives you comfort and confidence. The kind of confidence that allows people to drive minivans, grow mustaches, and name their daughter Dora.
Try walking into the office tomorrow without your cup of coffee in hand, then tell me you still feel confident. You can’t.
Next comes a glass of water. After about an hour into your day, you’re finally settling in and the work is beginning to flow, but that’s no good. You don’t want to actually get sucked into work-work, you just want to work. So you head over to the water cooler for a quick break. You casually talk with Chad, Spenser or Christina about the weather, sports, and maybe even surface level politics. Water isn’t your favorite but it’s a necessary evil.
By the time you’re done with water and you’ve maybe completed one menial task, it’s time for lunch. Oh, the possibilities!
Soda, lemonade, juice, smoothie, pick your poison. The lunch beverage is easily the second best in the lineup. That’s why Americans invented the eXtreme Gulp at 7/11. Because if your lunch beverage never ends than neither does your lunch vacation. Let’s stay here and do this forever! Sugary juicy sweetness helping your salad wrap go down smoother. Yum, healthy.
After the lunch beverage you return to your post for a nice little nap. I mean, as we saw, the lunch beverage can be extreme! And sometimes we all need a little rest after an extreme experience. You put your head down and zone out while you scroll through excel files and field a handful of phone calls, most of which you let go to voicemail.
Eventually your optimism gets the better of you and you come out of your post-lunch coma. I can do better than this. Time to go to work. Now some people here are bold enough to employ the energy drink or energy shot. That’s why the vending machine exists; for the bold ones. Other’s are in the middle of a really good book about gardening and DIY projects, so they’re drinking a cup of hot tea. But most people just go back for a second cup of coffee.
You power through the 2pm to 4pm block and come out on the other side feeling productive enough to elicit one final break. It’s the water cooler again. This time the conversation isn’t about external work life, but internal. You, Jake and Melissa size each other up on how much you got done today. Your reports might be fudged a little but you’re already on to Q3. Melissa is a perfectionist so she’s a little behind finishing up Q2, but she’s doing a thorough job so you like whenever she’s on your team for group projects. Jake is a slacker and wears it like a badge of honor. He makes you feel good about yourself because if you both had to outrun a bear, he’d be the guy trying to catch up to you. This water is so refreshing.
We round out our day by the best beverage of all, the one we’ve been looking forward to all day long - happy hour. Craft beers for the frat boys who finally outgrew croakies, wine for the sorostitutes who are actually, sincerely happy to be single for once, liquor for the management team who knows none of this matters, and scotch for the CEO’s who are still drunk from yesterday.
Yes indeed, a day in the life is a day with a beverage in hand.
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