Ah! The wretched gloom of the early morning work day. The glaring light, its fluorescence reflecting off of the radioactively-decayed-bone colored walls, shining, burning into your retina; the miasmal stink of the musty air sneaking into your nostrils; the cold white faces of unhappy drones all around – all of this is enough to give an indication of the general theme for the next 10 hours of your pathetically disappointing life that lay ahead. This combination would be enough to throw you right off the edge of your sanity, were it not for that black tar – your liquid gold – to lift you up and tell you that everything will be alright.

Every morning it’s the same routine. The sleepy and desperate people, line up for their fix of the day. The coffee pot runs out about five times within the first hour of arrival, and every time the disappointment can be felt as someone has to walk away, dragging their feet on the ruggedly friction-ed carpet, empty Styrofoam cup in hand, knowing that they will have to wait five minutes for the next pot to be made. They are facing the first tragedy of their long and depressing day. If only there could be an escape from their addiction…

The coffee drinker can be characterized as aggressive and on edge, a real son-of-a-bitch if he isn’t constantly hooked up to his IV. But what about the other dude, filling his cute artsy fartsy china cup with warmth and aroma, the yin to his yang: the fancy tea drinker. The tea drinker is often cool, calm and collected. Although he may not be as crazily turbo charged as the coffee guy, he is sure to get his work done just the same, keeping a smile on his face and a dreamy look of hope in his puffy sleep deprived eyes.

So the next time you’re in that kitchen of your nightmares (also serving as the copy room), just remember that the choice you make will determine the person you are and will forever be. Either you choose to pump into your body the thick black lava-like poison sweetly named as “coffee” or you can choose to soothe your soul with the calm and wonderfully aromatic nectar of the mythical god’s, tea.