Mocha mourning

Washingron-Dulles airport. Cooling down from the horrible security checks over a gold-priced comfort mocha in the terminal’s coffee bar. Sipping down the college money of my yet to be born kids and my grandma’s sweat. Well, once in college, my kids would probably spend the money on beer anyway, the price of which will likely have doubled by then. And the quality of the beer will of course have eroded by the same process that has made flying the humiliating experience and climate disaster it is now. So better spend it now on this lovingly prepared indulgence. And wasn’t the purpose of my grandma’s sweating precisely that: to give her children lives of mocha’s instead of mud? In eight hours I’ll be in on the other side of the ocean in Amsterdam. Amazing. It’s a crossing that in the times of Leif Erikson took months, maybe even years, or forever for too many. On the other hand, I doubt if the cultural differences between origin and destination of an eight-hour trip were any less in the Europe of a millennium ago than they are for my flight of today. I’d better go get another mocha for as long as it lasts.