Parents Fall 2000

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The Once-and-Future Love-of-My-Life and I were seated the other day on some rickety chairs in one of the funky little coffeehouses that adorn the Athens of America. As we waited for a recent Harvard graduate to serve us some delicious café amande, she filled the time by telling me exactly why she had broken our last romantic alliance; or maybe it was the one before that.

"You're a contrarian," she said, "and after a while it just gets to me."

"No I'm not," I said, and I really wasn't trying to be witty, honestly. But I wasn't telling the truth, either.

It is a bit better to be labeled a contrarian by her rather than a cynic, which was the observation that broke us up after our first period of dating. It's better in the way that truth is better than falsehood. Because there's no denying that I am a contrarian.

I am such a contrarian that it causes me a great deal of mental and emotional difficulty. It is hard to figure out, at times, what to be contrary against. There's so much to choose from in this world. Anything will do, but some do more than others. Take the example of Starbucks.

I love coffee. In fact, I really, really, really love it. I know you can't love something that doesn't love you back, as my little sister used to sneer at me when she was seven years old and internalizing dictionary definitions (she would lie on the floor in her Oshkosh-B'Gosh overalls, chin in hand, thoughtfully studying the ls for hours … chacun à son métier) but if coffee could love, it would love me. Oh, wow, how it would love me.

So the advent of Starbucks, the sudden rising of it in the West and its gradual progression into the Eastern parts of our nation, should have been something I was pretty excited about. And I will admit that I was. But ...

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