I was working across the road from a construction site at my cousins’ cafe in Bondi. The council had finally decided to demolish the toilets which looked like an outback drop dunny. Every day the tradies would walk over at around 10 am to order a coffee and breakfast. And after the first week, I noticed a pattern.

Though the coffee shop had almost 2000 coffee combinations and a comprehensive food cabinet, the tradies ordered a cappuccino with sugar and a breaky wrap. Every time.

The pattern was so absolute, I stopped asking what the tradie’s wanted. When a new tradie walked up to the counter, I’d say, “A cap with one?”

“Yeah, that’ll do, mate,” they’d say. “And a—”

“Breaky wrap?” I’d say.

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“I can read minds,” I’d deadpan.

And then the tradies expressions would transform from wonderment (“That was a cool trick”), to fear (“Maybe he can read my thoughts”), and then finally to scepticism (“It was just a good guess, surely”).

But it’s not a guess.

You may believe that a person’s coffee order is arbitrary. But there are strong correlations between the type of person you are and the type of coffee you order, just like there are correlations between certain types of people and clothes, or cars, or any brand, really.

There are outliers, of course. But after the tradie experience, I began doing the same mental tally with other demographics.

And so the Coffee Complex was born.

The Coffee Complex is a new Life’s a Batch series of instalments where I pick a coffee and deconstruct the type of person who orders that coffee.

Life’s a Batch subscribers who get my monthly emails are already familiar with these instalments.

But for those of you who don’t know, there’s a caveat. This warning is to cover my backside from any person who thinks I’m being politically insensitive by categorising people into general stereotypes.

Caveat: I use ‘he’ and ‘she’ as an indefinite pronoun, meaning the description applies to everyone on the gender spectrum. Also, the personas are fiction. And not meant to be taken too seriously.

So, without any further ado, here's:

The Long Mac ¾ Topped Up

The Long Mac 3/4 Topped Up drinker works 9-5 in the city and, on weekends, cycles. He doesn’t cycle the same way most of the population do—with a bike with three gears and in normal clothes.

No.

He owns a bike that costs more than most cars and has a wardrobe of tight-fitting lycra which makes him look like a wannabe superhero. In fact, one time he wore a scarf while riding—he was cold—so when the material caught in the morning wind and began flapping in his trial, he did sort of look like Batman’s rotund sidekick.

He’s not the fastest in his cycling group. He’s not even that experienced, having only ridden for a year. But that didn’t stop him from buying the Nimbus 2000 of road bikes. The bike is made out of a rare metal found in the Andes which makes the bike stronger than a bomb shelter and lighter than a lamington, or so the cycling expert said at the shop. Okay, maybe a very dense lamington—from a roadhouse or something. Still, he could lift the bike with his index finger.

Wow.

He got immense pleasure showing his mates his new bike, especially Gary. What a dick Gary is with his fancy Apple watch and nicely toned, shaved legs. If he was being honest with himself, he wouldn’t have felt propelled to buy 15 K road bike if there wasn’t an innate inkling to out-do Gary. But he’s always been competitive like that. It’s probably nothing personal.

He gets up to go cycling most Saturday mornings at 3 AM. It used to be at 5 AM. And then Gary suggested going earlier.

He said no, “That’s far too early,” and then Gary called him soft. So 3 AM it was.

The group rides 20 laps of the city, amounting to 180 km. He has gotten a lot fitter but the first time he rode the loops his legs were so fatigued he felt like he was getting stabbed by thousands of pins. It was incredibly painful, so much so, he wanted to cry. He didn’t of course.

Pfffttt.

A bit of pain never hurt anyone, he told himself.

But it did hurt him.

His scrotum was bruised and glutes were so tight he couldn’t even sit on a toilet. He also strained a calf muscle, so he had to walk around the office for three weeks like he had a steel rod up the clacker.

Anyway, as stated above, he’s a lot fitter now. And when he finishes the ride he’s not so sore, which means he can now join the boys for a coffee at a neighbourhood cafe.

He’s never drunk coffee in his life. That is why he’d probably order a hot chocolate if he could but Gary insists he has a Long Mac ¾ topped up. Whatever it is, he hates it. Too bitter. And it makes him need to piss.

And that is a problem because running to the bathroom and then navigating slippery tiles in cycling cleats and overly tight lycra is no trifle. It’s the reason he sometimes wets himself and he has to escape to the backdoor and ride home before Gary finds out.

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