DoubleShot Coffee Company

Years ago, in my formative age of beer exploration and appreciation, I sat drinking a Tilburg’s Dutch Brown Ale with a friend. I would read every word on a beer bottle, trying to learn as much about where it came from and why it tasted the way it did, but this bottle’s main distraction was the image on the front. It’s a personified bird sitting in a chair with a round steel pot on its head, eating a naked human, head-first with birds flying out of its tiny human ass. This launched me on an investigation as to its meaning, and that’s when my love for Hieronymus Bosch began. The bird is a figure representing sloth from the hell panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights. What an amazing work of art.  A fantastical depiction of Heaven, Earth, and Hell in three giant panels, I could get lost in the myriad scenes, but always find myself drawn to Hell.

I occasionally find myself pacing around the office or my living room asking, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this?” These are important questions, and not ones I ask myself trivially. This reflection is usually inspired by some combination of occurrences that remind me I’m trying to sell something that very few people are actually interested in, all-the-while being ridiculed as some sort of malevolent monster. I don’t have to do this. I could quit and shut everything down and disappear into the wilderness or the netherworld, never to trouble anyone again. It crosses my mind.

But we have a mission. I am on a mission. Whether you realize it or not, the DoubleShot has always had a mission, and I’ve long stated it at the end of each episode of our AA Cafe podcast. The mission is what we are about, and the reason we have for continuing to strive when we’d rather hang. It has expanded throughout the years of our existence, growing to include things that have become important along the way. We’re not yet finished and the mission statement is currently incomplete, but I think it’s all worth sharing.

Mother’s Day, for me, has always been one of those Hallmark holidays celebrated with greeting cards and church ceremonies, maybe appreciated more by moms than moms being appreciated. I don’t know if this Mother’s Day will be different for me or not, but I certainly have a different appreciation for my mom and for mothers in general.

My mom sent me coupons for cereal and other dry goods when I was living hand-to-mouth in my 20s, value shopping the bottom shelves for store brand calories to keep myself alive. She supported me when I was a vagabond, spending more time playing and exploring than working. She allowed me to move back into their house when I ran completely out of money at age 30, despite the fact that my dad was very unhappy about his son becoming a lazy, good-for-nothing bum. She hoped for the best but nurtured me through the worst.