A Coffee Called Karen

July 31st 1992. Images copyright Bill Watterson and Universal Press Syndicate.


There are times when cup of coffee is more than just a drink. A good cup a coffee can become a moment to remember and a bad cup as well. A life time moment captured in a small cup of brown/black liquid that to some of us is our cup of morning salvation. This week I was talking to one of my customers and we got onto the topic of what was the strongest coffee we ever had. His was in was on a holiday in Greece while mine was in Perth, Australia.

It was one of those typical hot summer mornings. I had been out late the night before and came to work on a public holiday with a heavy hangover. Back then I used to run a liquor store just off the beach in Scarborough. Next to my store there was a coffee shop normally run by three ladies, but today only Karen was working. She saw me come in and asked if I would like her to bring me over a coffee. I said that I would rather go to her café and have a big breakfast and a coffee to wake me up. I told her that I had another member of staff starting in another hour and I would be coming for that breakfast then.

When I went to order breakfast an hour later, Karen asked me what kind of coffee I would like? Foolishly I asked for one that would wake me up. She smiled at me and said ‘I can do that’. Well all I can say is that the cup of coffee she brought back to my table was, and still is, the strongest cup of coffee I’ve ever had. It was served in one of those tiny espresso cups and looked more like syrup than coffee. To this day I can’t remember what the hell I ate for my breakfast; all I remember was that cup of coffee.

I remember how blue the sky was that morning, how bright the daylight was outside that dark and cool coffee shop. I can remember Karen coming over and asking if the coffee was doing the trick (she had a cheeky smile on her face). Was it doing the trick? I remember how that coffee filled my head with the sound of buzzing bees. Now I was not only awake and alert, I was even more aware of how hung over I was. When I got back to the store David (my trainee manger) asked me how the coffee went. All I have ever said about that cup of coffee is that I never want to be that awake ever again. As the years have passed I now remember that moment in time, not because the coffee was great, in truth it wasn’t, but because the person who made it for me knew what I needed more than I did…a kick in the pants.