Espresso as Revolution, served by the shot

Has anyone had this experience? You sit down at a coffee shop with a friend, begin sipping the just-boiled beverage and making the smallest of talk. How's work? Not bad. Sip. Internet was down. Oh, lame. What's Melissa up to these days? Still nursing. Sip. Got four days off last week. That must've been fun. Keep sipping. The drink cools. Sip faster.

Next thing you know your friend and you are parading through Marxist ideology and its influence on liberation theology. A quick transition to international politics and America's Roman position, and how the president could benefit from a little liberation theology. A short conspiracy theory and then off into globalization and its various ups and ills.

And then, the epiphany, the plan. "Here's what we should do," you begin, or he does. It doesn't matter, you're both thinking it. A plan to change everything. Hatched conspiratorially there on the patio, over lukewarm mochas. It's all so simple, so palpable. The world spins by the stir of your spoon.

But somehow later that night, when you're eating plain cold bread slices by the light of your refrigerator and your head hurts a little, nothings quite so plain. Maybe the world suffers from a chronic shortage of caffeine.