The Morning After: My Cosi Conundrum

By Anonymous

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A few months into my fall fling last year, my mom called me to tell me that my brother would be playing a lacrosse tournament on my campus and that my whole family was coming down to have lunch with me. I was excited to see everyone, but a 12pm lunch date wasn’t going to stop me from having my fun the night before. All I had to do was take a few precautions: no hickies, a cute outfit already picked out, water bottles and Advil ready, and an alarm set early enough to get my bright, happy (not hungover) self to lunch just in time to see my family.

Before heading out on Friday night, I got everything ready and set out for another typical bar night. It went like any other – lots of cocktails, lots of dancing, lots of bathroom trips – and ended with some “wannaa meet pu??” texts. My then “fling,” we’ll call David, and I decided to have a little sleepover. We stayed at his place (a good half-hour walk from my own apartment – sometimes I hate big campuses) and I ritualistically shut my phone off before we fell asleep.

When I woke up in the morning and realized where I was I freaked out. “OMG WHAT TIME IS IT?!” I scoured the floor for my watch and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized it was only 10 am. I still had two hours until I had to meet my parents.

When David got up to take a shower, I found my phone (under the bed?!) and turned it on. And that’s when everything started to head downhill. I was still counting the voicemails from my mom’s cell phone when David came back in the room. 12 from her, 4 from home, 6 from my sister, 2 from my brother, 8 from my dad and three emails from his Blackberry. I only listened to one of the threatening messages from my mother, but it was enough to know that they were not only worried about me, but they were straight-up pissed off that I wasn’t picking my phone up.

I quickly returned the call, which consisted of many “I’m sorry”s,  “my phone was off, I’m still in bed” (though no mention of whose…) and “I just need a quick shower then I can meet you.” Before I even hung up the phone I was up and bolting towards the door. In David’s gym shorts, my flats and leather jacket. His roommate happened to be walking to the same side of campus as I was so he offered to walk with me.

We passed a Cosi on our way and the roommate decided to stop in for some coffee. Seeing as I was still semi drunk and overly tired, I agreed, excited to get some of that hot heaven in my system.

We were about ten steps from the door when the roommate changed his mind.

“Meh. I don’t like their coffee. Let’s just stop somewhere else.”

I argued with him for a minute (“we’re already here…why are you so picky? I need some coffee now!”), but after he offered to buy me a cup if I went somewhere else with him I obliged.

Besides running into my freshman year hall director and her fiancé and having an awkward lovely conversation with them, the rest of my walk home was fairly uneventful. I chugged my coffee, took the world’s fastest shower and ran to my car to meet my parents for lunch.

That’s when I called my mom to see where they were.

“Cosi.”
“Cosi?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Yes, Cosi. We’ve been here for over an hour. We’re in the front and waiting for you.”

I never thought I’d be so grateful for my hook-up buddy’s roommate’s picky pallet, but it’s certainly the first thing that came to my mind that morning. I can’t even imagine the scene that would’ve incurred had he not been so against Cosi’s coffee.