Lost Transmissions: Coffee
Created | Updated Nov 28, 2011
Editorial note: This entry comes with video support. Just click the image near the bottom of the page to view. – DG
Entry: Coffee.
Whatever you choose to call it, on which ever world you live on, Coffee, Quoffi, Kafe, Kuphie, D'run, Xmoo, K'fe or any of a thousand other variations, the basic idea is exactly the same.
Fruit seeds are extracted, roasted, crushed and brewed in boiling liquid until the resulting drink pops your eyeballs out of your head, zaps your nervous-system into a psychotic state of alertness, and leaves even the most lethargic beings jogging on the spot and babbling like maniacs.
This, as you will surely understand, is big business.
All over the galaxy beings who have chosen lives of paid drudgery can now finish their morning journey with a cup of red hot stimulants that somehow makes their mundane shift more bearable.
It's not just you, nobody else understands this either.
The preferable state would undoubtedly be to go through the day in the foggy semi-consciousness they woke up in, with the stimulants taken after the working shift so the being in question could take full advantage of their free time.
Apparently this is also the case, only more so – thus the foggy brains in the morning – thus the coffee.
In order to satisfy the cravings of the population there has been an explosion of coffee shops that is only rivalled by the DingoRibs franchise in its scale. On every street corner on every world you can now find a sleazy little shop that will sell you overpriced frothy animal lactation spiked with the aforementioned seed bi-product and a tiny biscuit.
As there are vast profits to be made from every cup these shops are heavily protected by a specialist branch of the criminal underworld, the Costo-Nera, who are easily identified by their black uniforms, alert expressions, grinding teeth, and the word "Barista" emblazoned on the back of their shirts.
A hitchhiker, suddenly finding himself down on his luck and out of cash, can join this clan for some easy money – the interview consisting of a simple Q&A of "You done this before?" to which the correct response is "Yeah, like, whatever."
Due to the nomadic nature of most coffee shop staff, progress through the ranks of the Costo-Nera can be swift if you choose to stay put for more than a few weeks, with some even finding themselves in charge with the rank of Cuppo-Do-Tooti-Cuppi, which pays slightly more and allows you to spend all day hiding in the back office while you sleep off the excesses of the night before.
Not satisfied with their near dominance of the high-street the Costo-Nera branched out into more rarified areas. The universe was scoured by specially trained Baristas for the ultimate seeds, blends, and psychotropic effects until Q'Oghe was finally discovered.
Q'Oghe, a seed that has been passed through the digestive system of a Prelar, a small vicious animal that lives up trees and bites anything that moves, was seen as the very best, smooth, potent and impossible to harvest without a lot of animal laxatives, a bucket and a tiny sieve. And, of course, when you are selling a product everybody wants, rare equals expensive, in this case somewhere in the region of 10,000 Altarian Dollars per cup.
This is widely condemned as high-street robbery which, as far as the Costo-Nera is concerned, is sort of the whole point.
As far as the Baristas are concerned, they earn so little and drink so much that they can never earn enough to pay what they owe, which is why most of them leave their planets, learn to hitchhike and buy a copy of this book, thus "The Q'Oghe Negative Equity Trap" is now recognized as one of the major factors why the Guide is so phenomenally successful.
Entry Ends.
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