MacGougan at Large

Notes on My Ineffectual Boycotts - 5

Not Really Boycotts (Coffee and Tattoos)

I don’t drink coffee. I don’t have any tattoos. Am I boycotting those things? I don’t think so. Those are simply my personal preferences, not intended to send a message to anyone. It can seem like a boycott, though, if you feel like you’re swimming against the tide.

I just don’t like coffee. I tried it as a kid, found the taste repellent, and never felt motivated to give it a second chance. In retrospect, it probably would have helped my business career if I’d been able to at least feign alertness at morning meetings.

Being a non-coffee-drinker is fairly unusual. The list of American adults who don’t drink coffee is as follows: Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Rastafarians, and MacGougan. I wish I had a nickel for every cup of coffee I ever declined. It would have been easier to explain if I’d just become a Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, or Rastafarian. In my native Episcopalianism, coffee is pretty close to being a sacrament.

Over the past year, I’ve had two beach vacations - one in Puerto Rico and one in Hawaii. In both cases, I came away with the impression that my wife and I possess the last two non-tattooed bodies in North America. When did this change? When I was a kid, one percent of the population - a few retired sailors and a couple of goth bikers - had tattoos. Now, our blank canvases make us the oddballs.

Still, I have no plans to get tatted up. Too permanent! Fashions change, and a tattoo is a life-long commitment.