Forty-Two

I love coffee, and I love tea. I like black tea, chai tea, herbal teas, but particularly green tea. If I had to choose to drink only one beverage for the rest of my life, I would choose green tea. Now, this is a big deal because I am a caffeine addict and I am readily willing to admit this to anyone who would accuse me of being such. I adore coffee! J'aime particulièrement mon café au lait ! It makes me very very sad that Starbucks doesn't have café au lait on their main menu. You have to ask for it especially. For those of you who may not know, café au lait is a delicious combination of espresso and steamed milk (or in my case soy milk due to my current intolerance) in exactly equal proportions, which originated in France, (hence he French name,) and is traditionally drunk unsweetened and at breakfast either by itself or with a lightly buttered croissant. From my own past experience, it also goes extremely well with a biscotti, which originate from Italy, and for the sake of only talking about 1 foreign nation at a time, I will not bother to give a history of.

So why am I choosing green tea when I clearly love coffee so much? I would have to say for the health benefits. Green tea is full of antioxidants, which eliminate cancer-causing free radicals from your body, and help to boost your metabolism which means you can eat that biscotti every now and then without it making you fat. Seeing as I am a health freak with a little family history of cancer, both of those are rather important to me. Oh, and did I mention that it tastes delicious? Green tea comes in a vast innumerable quantity of flavors, some of the best being the combinations which include pomegranate, orange, lemon, blueberry, strawberry, grape, and acai. Which one is my favorite? Right now, I like original, plain, green-tea-flavored green tea the best. Usually I drink it oh-so-boringly sweetened with fiber, anti-oxidant, and B vitamin enhanced Splenda, which appeases my maybe-slightly-irrational-but-still-mostly-reasonable fear of cancer.

Today I came back home from hanging out with one of my best friends all weekend. I decided that since I had a lot of coffee this past weekend, I would make myself a cup of green tea for a little variety. So I pulled out my rather large box of plain green tea bags and noticed a tiny shadow on the lid of the box. I looked a little bit closer and it occurred to me that it was a dent. Upon further examination I realized that there was a very small "42" imprinted on the box. This brought a truckload of questions to my mind. "What is this? What is it doing here? What does it mean? What is it saying? What does it want? etc. 42. what does 42 have to do with tea? 42..."


That was when I noticed that the box said it contains 40 tea bags. Well those numbers certainly are close in the numberalphabet aren't they? I decided to count the tea bags and guess how many their were? 42... but the box said 40. Maybe its like a baker's dozen. A dozen is 12 for all of you metric-speaking humans.In medieval Europe, if royalty or noblemen purchased a dozen cakes or loaves of bread or something else like that from a baker and the baker didn't give them all 12, he could get imprisoned, or beheaded. Traditionally, lower class people were barely educated, so the counting skills of a commoner might not be completely pristine. To avoid unintentionally gypping the nobility, many would put 13 of whatever it was into the order for every 12 they were supposed to make. No one is going to kill you for giving them extra pasties, right? Eventually, the term "baker's dozen" became accepted to mean 13. I highly doubt the CEOs of Salada Tea would receive capital punishment for only including 39 tea bags in the box. Really now, how any people (other than me) care enough to count their teas? Maybe the reason is similar to the reason why companies who manufacture microwaveable products or other food include a message that says "Caution: Product may be Hot." Is everyone that afraid of getting sued?

My observation is rather simple. In order for our lives to work, we have to allow for a bit of give and take. We spend too much time jumping on people who have "wronged" us to think that maybe they just made a mistake. We need to learn to love people. As one of my teachers put it, "Love is going easy on people, and love is being patient with the people who annoy us." Why is it that we have to spend so much time worrying about the possibility that something we say will offend someone somewhere? Maybe if the world would just relax for a moment and stop keeping its nickers in a twist, we would stop focusing on ourselves so much, and relax enough to care about someone else for a change. When we take everything personally and demand that WE GET THE TREATMENT WE DESERVE OR ELSE, MISTER! We really drain the enjoyment out of life. If there is someone out there getting upset that thy paid for 40 packets of green tea but there was a miscount, relax. How many times have you bought a box with an extra 2? Maybe you should give the tea people a break. Just be chill. The universe isn't out to get you. The tea company isn't trying to rob you of $0.05. Focus on giving back to your community rather than trying to take everything it can give you. Be easy on people. Wouldn't you appreciate it if someone cut you slack when you mess up sometimes? Treat people the way you want to be treated, and eventually you will gain their love and respect.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

This is not the only problem we need to face. But if you try to live this way, you will notice a difference in yourself. I know I have noticed the change in my own life. I can forgive more easily, I can hope more easily, and I can give people the benefit of the doubt more often. This is not the only thing that humanity has yet to learn, but love might just be the answer to life, the universe, and everything.