Oh, The Horror of Man's Fetid Soul....

We have a coffee thief amongst us.

Yesterday morning I awoke at 8:15 (not bad for someone with no alarm clock, eh?) and was greeted for the first time with the dismaying sight of an empty coffee urn. The breakfast table is “First come, first served,” which translates into, “Grab it before someone else does, because we ain’t filling it again.” It’s my only shot at real, filtered coffee (surprisingly, these cultured English people think powdered crap is a viable alternative) so I was doomed to spend the morning caffeine-free. I know from my recent experience with the White Trash Lemon Cleansing that: me - coffee = bitch for a day. It’s not the most pleasant equation to wake up to.

So, this morning I told my brain to rouse me at 7AM otherwise it wouldn’t get its daily injection of wake-me-up. My brain is so prompt when it's motivated.

At 7:03 I was at the first one at the breakfast table. I passed the cereal boxes and stale croissants to grab the first cup of brownish goo they pass off as coffee. The virgin cup. I clomped back upstairs to my room and spent a lovely 3 minutes drinking it. Empty so soon? Never mind. It was only ten past the time service began. Surely it was early enough to grab another round. Besides, the coffee thief might have checked out. I slipped my sweater over my pajamas and walked down for another cup of coffee.

But it was gone.

Not only was it gone, but in their thieving haste the selfish bastard hadn’t even bothered to place the carafe back in the machine. It sat smoldering in the middle of the table, mocking me with its brown ring of dregs at the bottom. I stood there, stunned. The coffee thief had struck again.

My only comfort is in the knowledge that the coffee thief’s life is a miserable, worthless, insignificant, contemptible, wretched waste of cells...because it takes a real ass to steal coffee from a hotel full of people.

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Big Brother task for the week: Choreograph and perform an exact rendition of the OK Go treadmill video. They won. There will be cookies and beer this week.

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Tomorrow, by request - “The Loonies of London”

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Goodness...I almost forgot! Today there was a little party for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday in Hyde Park. I went down earlier just for the honor of being in the vicinity of such a great man. The juxtaposition between the sacrifices he made to fight for the rights of Man and the selfishness of a hostile regime bullying its people during the election in Zimbabwe today seem poetic in its disparity. However, it started raining as soon as I got off the bus so I didn't stay long.

I admire that man, but my camera was getting wet. Sorry, Nellie. Maybe I'll see you on your 100th.

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