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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

His handwritten works featured jittery penmanship.

But it’s no wonder Honoré de Balzac was prolific. He published scores of novels, novellas, plays and short stories. The author had ink in his blood, but his blood might have been nothing but coffee. Whether it’s legend or simply internet malarkey, I’ve read that he drank 50 cups of coffee a day — 51 cups when he needed an extra caffeine boost to stimulate himself into a frenzy of creativity. He wrote at full gallop.

As a boy, I slept above the kitchen in our old farmhouse. The smell of coffee brewing on the stove in the aforementioned kitchen wafted up into my room and acted as a caffeine-filled alarm clock. I don’t drink coffee, but I greedily inhale its aroma.

My mother never surprised my father with a survival juice called a triple-shot, no foam, extra hot soy milk latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla syrup, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and a drizzle of caramel on top. Espresso, latte, cappuccino, Americano, mocha and flat white weren’t on her beverage list. Mother made black coffee thick and strong enough that a spoon would stand upright in the mug, which needed to be shaken to get the coffee to fall out. She used a shovel to put the grounds into the coffeepot.

She took her coffee seriously. It was a dark, angry sea in a cup. Her coffee dripped from the pot like the oil being drained from our ancient pickup during an oil change. She sometimes made egg coffee by adding an egg to the coffee. What else would you add to make it egg coffee? It wasn’t a Cadbury or Kinder egg. Adding the egg helped clarify the coffee, allowing the grounds to separate from the water. The egg extracted the bitterness from the grounds and enhanced the caffeine. It made for lively gatherings of church ladies and helped those little round sandwiches with spray cheese on them slide down smoothly.

Lots of people loved Mom’s coffee. I could pick them out from a crowd. They were constantly shaking.

I recall riding on the school bus, where the wheels went round and round, when a friend said he was looking forward to turning 14. Most of us were hoping to make it to 15 so we could get a driver’s license (a perk of farm living). The reason he highly anticipated hitting the grand age of 14 was because, in his family, 14-year-olds were allowed to drink coffee. It was a rite of passage, and he hoped that would make him an adult with all the associated privileges. He couldn’t wait to get out of bed in the morning just because coffee needed him. No matter if it were 14 or 15, those milestones seemed two lifetimes away. Little did we know those years would fly by in a snooze-alarm minute.

A neuroscientist, who has never nodded in my direction, said drinking hot coffee makes you feel colder, but the cup holding it makes a handy hand warmer for those occasions when you remember to take a jacket because you never know, but didn’t bring gloves because you thought you knew.

Staying in a hotel in Alberta, I watched an unending line of cars negotiating the drive-thru at Tim Hortons in pursuit of coffee and Timbits (donut holes). Drivers waited patiently to hear those three little words they longed to hear: “Here’s your coffee.”

A family member was gifted with a pile of Colombian coffee beans purchased in Colombia. It pleased him. This coffee is renowned for its quality and taste. His residence has become the home of the bottomless cup, where happiness is a decent cup of coffee that doesn’t cost a grand for a grande.

The Ink Spots, in their ditty “Java Jive,” sang, “I love coffee, I love tea. I love the java jive, and it loves me.”

I enjoy a cup of hot tea. I was savoring one, when unbeknownst to me, a multicolored Asian lady beetle did a kamikaze dive into the hot liquid, befouling a fine beverage. I learned that by taking a big sip.

What did it taste like? It’s difficult to describe, but I’ll bet it’s available at a coffee shop somewhere.

Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Wednesday.