Coffee is a reason to get up in the morning.  The only reason?  Maybe not for you, but this isn’t about you, is it?  Okay, well, it’s about you to the extent that you’re reading me.  And yes, existentially, it is all about you, but not in that “It’s all about me” way.  Like when you do something that inconveniences people around you and you pretend to apologize but it’s all fake because really you don’t care about anyone else but yourself.  But I digress.  Kind of.

When I was a child, before I knew the joy and brute necessity of coffee, I was perplexed by those Folgers commercials that had people smiling before their eyes opened, rising to the wafting aroma of coffee, stretching in a mixture of contentment and anticipation — the former due to the smell, the latter due to the impending taste.  The theme song, sung in lilting, folksy tones by someone who also seems to feel the same mixture of contentment and anticipation as those waking to the aforementioned wafting aroma and impeding taste, ended with the now-upbeat tag, “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”  Catchy, huh?

As I said, I didn’t know coffee then — not like I do now.  (Sure, my parents’ rearing skills had their flaws, but allowing me to drink coffee before I was eighteen wasn’t one of them.)  And I sure as heck didn’t know there wasn’t a good reason not to get up.  I had my suspicions, but I was an obedient child.  I kept my doubts to myself.  Now that I am older, wiser, utterly disobedient and fully caffeinated, I see the problem clearly.

As far as I know, the one and only time that Folgers got it right — only to screw it up in a major way — was when they made a commercial starring a young Scott Bacula.  No, it’s not right because Scott Bacular was in it — no offense to him.  It was right because it recognized that getting up in the morning is wrong.  A bad idea.  Clearly not worth it.  It went like this: A grumpy couple is not looking forward to their day, mainly because it looks like they’ll have to do it without Folgers.  Why on Earth, you might ask, could that be?  Well, they’re a decaffeinated couple.  Might as well be decapitated.  See, just when the commercial is making sense — two people are suspicious, perhaps even cynical about this whole let’s-get-up-and-do-the-same-crap-we’ve-been-doing-our-whole-adult-lives-and-for-no-apparently-good-reason thing — Folgers zags.  It’s like a bait and switch.  I don’t know about you people, but I need liquid enthusiasm, not a drink that screams, “Psych!”

I suppose I should be happy now.  These days, the United States has a coffee culture of epic proportions.  Starbucks.  Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.  Peet’s.  (If you lack CB&TL or Peet’s in your neck of the woods, my condolences.)  Independently owned cafés persist, despite the big chain-choke.  There are even coffee bars in markets.  But I’m not happy.  On the rare occasions that I go out for coffee, everyone around me — the smug, self-satisfied sippers, the bustling barista, and the can’t-wait-to-get-my-order-started-for-me cashier are all just too.  Yeah, “too.”  Add whatever you want, I don’t care.  All I want is my coffee — or triple-shot latte.  I don’t want too anything.  At that moment, life is hard enough for me as it is.  I don’t need more; I need less.

So, back to Folgers.  I won’t drink the stuff, but I’ve got to hand it to them.  To this day, they keep it simple.  If you’ve got to get up, have a cup.  Everything else will inevitably follow.