Kitsch Magazine: Fall 2015

DEPENDENCE
a college student’s complicated relationship with coffee
by Zoe Ferguson
The collective relationship Americans have with
caffeine is a kind of polymorphous perversion. Though caffeine
is a drug, and people overdose on it just like any other drug,
coffee has saturated our collective consciousness to such
a degree that to dislike coffee is almost akin to being un-
American.
What does it mean to be a coffee drinker? First, let’s
consider what it means to not be a coffee drinker. If I don’t
drink at least one cup a day, I can never live up to the ideals
of my biggest role models. Most notably, the four role models
who raised me: my mother, my father, and Lorelai and Rory
Gilmore have a passion for coffee at all times of the day
and night that seemed to fuel their ability to pull off weird
outfits and hilarious quips. When I was 12 years old, my dad
noticed my increasing inability to get up in time for school and
decided I was probably “a coffee person.” This characterization
made me feel validated, like I had been initiated into a way of
life, or a very unsociable fraternity. Now that I drank coffee to
get things done, I could be just like Mom and Dad, who slept
at odd hours and caffeinated all day and in the middle of the
night. Having coffee in the morning became an act of selfvalidation:
if I drank this, I was officially in The Adult Club. It
set me apart from my younger siblings and my seventh-grade
classmates. When I couldn’t focus on a test in geometry class,
I remember thinking, That’s the last time I skip coffee in the
morning. In the spring of seventh grade, I had to give it up for
a mandatory three-day class camping trip, and I experienced
withdrawal headaches and sickness.
In high school, I didn’t caffeinate as much. I found more
energy (and solace) in food, so I got high—and crashed—on
carbs and sugar. It all went downhill in college. While it’s true
that coming to Cornell was a great move for many reasons—
friends, learning, gorges, etc.—in other ways, it doomed me
to an existence of wavering dependence on and a strange
existential attachment to the drink. I place part of the blame
on Cornell’s coffee card program, which allows you to get a
art by Julia Pearson
free drink after 10 cups, but Collegetown’s plethora of coffee
shops doesn’t exactly help either. What’s a girl to do when she
passes Starbucks, Collegetown Bagels, and now Dunkin’ Donuts
on the way to class?
The whole university system seems to be enabling
caffeine dependence. It prioritizes independent individuals. Yes,
it’s cool to have friends, but what’s really cool is being a selfmade
person in America. That’s what this country is all about.
But for many, being a student at a highly competitive university
also means being dependent on something—and if it’s not
drugs or alcohol, it’s probably caffeine. Being a caffeine addict
is part of the canonical life of the college student. Staying
up all night in the library stacks is even easier with Libe Café
serving coffee until midnight every weeknight. Independence
is a function of how much energy you can muster up every
day, and that energy is facilitated by a daily caffeine dose. In
an environment where everything else is shifting—friends and
relationships come and go, jobs and classes are fluid, even
living situations are often in limbo—coffee becomes the friend
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