365 Day Writing Challenge 39: Coffee & Tea

39. Coffee & Tea: Surely you drink one or the other or know someone who does- write about it!

I associate tea with my mum – bowl like cups filled with grey milky tea, the smell making me gag. Walking steadily up the stairs, trying not to breathe in the smell, watching it slop in the cup and praying it won’t spill. Getting her to open her bedroom door, and setting it down carefully. Her slurping away, hair unwashed, no bra.

I don’t like tea.

I associate coffee with my dad – a clean functional drink in a clean functional blue cup. Precise and easy instructions: a teaspoon and a half of coffee, a teaspoon and a half of sugar. And only, thank God, a tiny splash of milk.

Falsehoods

The next person who tells me that my mother is a good mother/great person/aren’t you lucky gets hit in the face.