There are some things in life I just don’t understand: mathematics, women and decaffeinated coffee to name a few. And while I can get away with not talking about my lack of understanding on the former two subjects, I just can’t let decaf go. Because it goes oh so much further than pissing off your local coffee shop over a half-shot decaf mocca. It’s so much deeper than that.

Allow me to explain my thoughts on this issue. You may not know it, but since the stone age there has existed a bean – a special bean grown in fields, and delivered to you in a pretty packet. I may have skipped quite a number of steps for it to get to that point but the point remains – there is a bean. It gets harvested and generally people mix it with some hot water, sugar and milk to give them an extra spark in the day. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the name of this bean? It’s a coffee bean of course. But do you know what it’s key ingredient is? Caffeine.

This brings me to the logical question: What’s the point? Why would you have something that’s had its key ingredient removed? It’s like going “Okay so I need oil for my car but it can’t have any fossil’s in it at all”. Sure enough, 100m down the road your engine has seized up because you were a big enough idiot to think water was going to lubricate your engine. And it’s not like you could even call it an oil, since it just isn’t the same!

There seems to be this huge trend of people going for alternative products that lack what make them so special and I just don’t understand. I love iced donuts right; given that I sure as hell wouldn’t get low-fat, no icing equivalents being sold as iced donuts. Because they simply wouldn’t be donuts!  I’m wondering what it takes for someone to give up the wholesome taste of whatever it is they love, for a shitty knock off equivalent. Don’t get me started on skim milk.

The way I see it, peoples reasoning for going for shitty alternative products could be thus – they are yuppies and love jumping on the newest fad, or they have a weight or body deficiency problem. In the case of skim milk (I got myself started) I absolutely cannot see a reason for anyone to go for it unless they were over 5000kg’s and even then I can’t really see it. Last time I checked they all tasted like water because they, once again, had their most important ingredient removed – the fat from the cow! And if you’re lactose intolerant, I’m pretty sure skim milk won’t help you either!

I mean fair enough if you can’t have milk products because you’re lactose intolerant. We all feel horrible for you that you have to sit there sipping on a soy milk based awful product (because let’s face it, soy milk is just terrible) – we really do. But if you’re a young man or woman that’s pretty much in the correct weight bracket, you should be asking why you hate yourself so much as to deny the real thing over a poor substitute. The same applies to coffee.

What gets me most about the self-satisfied people who sit there boasting about the fact they use skim milk in their chai lattes, is the fact that you use so little of it in the scheme of things that it doesn’t make a fucking difference to anything apart from the taste! And the taste is most certainly in the negatives with anything other than full cream milk. Walking to the other side of the goddamn office would burn off the fats from one glass of milk.

So if you are one of the idiots I’m talking about today, take my advice: You’re on this earth for a short, fun-filled time. Do you honestly want to fuck it up with low-fat soy milk, half-shot decaffeinated mocha chinos, and other alternative products? Do you do it just to piss people off? All you’re doing is screwing yourself out the real awesome thing that you’re trying to substitute. And if it makes you fat, so be it! At least you enjoyed it!