Review #9 - Crio Bru Coffee Alternative

Well, my dear friends, the time has come again for yet another review. It's not often that a product is so bad that I immediately jump to my blog to express my distaste - in fact, I considered myself all but retired until I tried this next product. Introducing: Crio Bru 100% Ground Cocoa Beans Coffee Alternative.

Those of you who know me know that my favorite color is orange. You might also know that I quite enjoy coffee. Nothing wakes me up in the morning like my alarm, and nothing dulls the pain of waking up too early like a cup of joe. So you're probably asking yourself "why buy a coffee alternative, then, you dolt?" And to answer your question, I didn't buy it. Rather, I have a generous and wonderful friend who offered to pick me up some coffee while she was in Gardiner.

Gardiner, MT, for those of you successful enough to not work at Yellowstone, is essentially the Hogsmeade of the park. It is the nearest real town to the Yellowstone village of Mammoth Hot Springs, where I and a bunch of other wonderful weirdos work. If I run out of a crucial supply like coffee, I can either buy it from the general store between the hours of "screw you" and "get off work earlier if you want to shop, idiot" o'clock (Mountain Time) or take a hidden passageway underneath a statue to Gardiner. Without a Marauders Map, I was hopeless to venture to Gardiner myself. Luckily, other people were smart enough to bring a car, yet dumb enough to let me take advantage of their car-having. So I texted this lady, asking if she could pick something up for me.

"What do you need? "
"Just some coffee"
"What kind?"
"Doesn't matter"

The next scene opens with her hand-delivering the groceries to my room out of the kindness of her heart, only for me to absolutely roast her for buying coffee alternative. Why do people hang out with me? A question for another day, and many sleepless nights. Anyway, it turns out the coffee isn't real. It's disguised as coffee, hidden in a coffee-like bag, lurking in the aisles of the Gardiner market, just waiting to be picked by an unsuspecting victim like a mushroom that gives you real death instead of ego death. Regardless, I wasn't about to subject myself to the unknown abyss that is coffee alternatives just yet, and so I purchased genuine coffee while on my next outing.

Cut to me, a week or so later, finally brewing this stuff. I open the package only for my nose to be sweetly greeted with the delicious aroma of delicate chocolate. I have to resist the urge to eat the grounds straight like the little piggy I am. As I brew it, I'm delighted to see a wonderful bloom start to form over the grounds, typically a sign of some truly dank coffee. Could this imposter be even better than the original, like Oreos and that cleaning-solution-sounding other cookie they copied? I prepare my olfactory organs for the pleasure they're about to receive. I take a sip - my spine begins to contort itself into a knot and my head embarks on its voyage to travel 360° around my neck. I had just given my mouth the taste-equivalent of slamming one's finger in a doorway.

The taste of this coffee alternative is more akin to a lead fishing sinker than it is to any form of coffee. I've had influenza that tasted better than this - and with a better mouth feel, too. The stuff was thinner than a Soviet's food ration. It felt like liquid fiberglass insulation on the tongue, but without a lovable cartoon mascot to dull the pain. In my beverage power rankings, Crio Bru is placed just above hydrofluoric acid, and just below that carton of orange juice from 2007 I found beneath my bed in 2016. I highly recommend everyone double check their coffee bags at the grocery store next time they shop for coffee to ensure they won't legally assault their loved ones by serving them a cup of this hogwash.

4/10

TL;DR: This cocoa bean-based coffee alternative has delicious scents of chocolate and sweetness. This is contrasted heavily by the sour taste of what I can only describe as concentrated afterbirth and tree bark. There's a soft hint of chocolate if you can force your taste buds to ignore their alarms blaring with every sip. If toilets had taste buds, drinking Crio Bru is as close as humans could get to feeling their pain.

(This review was typed and posted on a smart phone, using the world's slowest internet, in Yellowstone National Park. Excuse any typos or formatting errors. As always, please address all complaints to your mother.)

In The Pines - An Opening To A Novel

This is another English assignment I decided to put online. The prompt called for an opening scene in which you develop character and whatnot. I may have taken some creative liberties when describing my home county, but the detective is a city-slicker from Seattle, so I'm actually patronizing everyone equally. 

          Walter Jeff hadn’t seen so much green in one place since he busted that eco-friendly drug cartel. The skyscrapers he was so familiar with were replaced with stories-tall evergreens. City blocks became square miles of jagged treetops, the green blanket covering Skamania County broken up only by forest service access roads. As Walter turned onto the first of many gravel roads he’d encounter, he had to think sweet thoughts of retirement to keep himself calm. His Prius was built for civilized roads, not these shaky gravel atrocities.

           It wasn’t until he arrived at the scene of the crime, a recent murder at a remote hunting camp, that he was truly struck with disdain for the slack-jawed inhabitants of this pathetic county. As he stepped out of his car, the native greeting of “howdy!” pierced his eardrums and the slow crawl of cringe worked its way up his spine until his shoulders were near his ears.

            “You must be the Sheriff of this… place,” said Walter, buttoning his wool suit. He placed a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, a habit he picked up once smoking was outlawed damn near everywhere in the city.

            “Sure am, mister. You must be that hotshot detective they sent down from Seattle,” replied the uniformed man through a three-toothed grin. Walter thought the vapid homunculus speaking to him looked a bit like an excited dog. He wondered if he still had a tennis ball in his car to keep the locals busy while he worked.

“The body’s over here,” said the Sheriff, walking towards a small clearing in the brush. “Local drunk hermit called it in. ‘Delirium Dave,’ they call him. Thought it was his wife at first, but we reminded him he’s never been married. Easy mistake to make, though. Kind of looks like my old lady, too, if I’m being square with you.”

            As Walter approached, the familiar stench of decomposition filled his nostrils. The sight of the body before him nearly kicked his feet out from under him and he grabbed the nearest deputy for balance. Sprawled out on the ground and covered in dried blood was the hairiest body Walter had ever seen. Perhaps even more remarkable was the size, which he estimated to be about eight feet tall.

            “Gentlemen, I don’t think that’s anybody’s wife. I think it’s a giant ape.”

            His retirement might have to wait a little longer than he thought.

What Even Is This Blog Anymore? I Don't Know But Here's a Poem

Pedantic Satiation

Whereas, my father told me a poem has to rhyme,

            And all else is nonsense,

Whereas, last year’s day planner is no longer useful,

            That’s planned obsolescence,

Whereas, I’ve been reading advanced books on solipsism,

            I’m the smartest person I know,

Whereas, poems should include some form of imagery,

            A shriveled dead flower in the snow,

Whereas, I don’t like talking about soccer player Jermaine Jones,

            That is, of course, unless he’s relevant,

Whereas, the joke gift exchange awkwardly failed,

            That in the room? It’s a white elephant,

Whereas, I failed a class because I was always sleeping,

            But I aced the rest,

Whereas, involuntary manslaughter can be hilarious,

            Just put a space after “s”,

Whereas, I assume near rhymes count,

            But I’m afraid to ask,

Whereas, my truck driver uncle got a ticket for going 62 in a 55, or maybe it was 63,

            Either way, he was only going semi-fast,

Now, therefore, then, I shall declare:

            Poems don’t have to rhyme, dad,

            So there ya go.