Man Has Been 'About To Start Drinking Black Coffee' For Seven Years

A Dallas-area office worker has entered the eighth consecutive year of declaring his intention to transition to black coffee, a goal that remains as aspirational today as it was when first announced in a break room in 2019. Brad Creamer, 44, makes the declaration approximately once per quarter, typically triggered by exposure to coffee content on social media or a colleague who drinks their coffee without additions. "I'm going to start drinking it black," Creamer told coworkers last Monday while adding two creamers and a sugar packet to his mug. "Probably next week. I've been thinking about it." Coworkers who have tracked the declarations report a consistent pattern: the announcement, followed by one to three days of reduced cream usage, followed by what Creamer calls "a temporary setback" and colleagues call "adding more cream than before." "His longest streak was in 2022 when he made it four days," reported cubicle neighbor Janet Drip. "On day five he put so much creamer in his coffee that it was essentially a warm milkshake. He didn't talk about black coffee for three months after that." Creamer attributes his difficulty to what he describes as "a palate in transition" and insists that the eventual switch is inevitable. "I'm closer than I've ever been," he said, a statement he has made verbatim in seven of the eight years. His wife, who was briefly consulted, noted that he also adds syrup to his pancakes despite annual declarations of switching to plain.