Their relationship started slowly.

The man (Brian) was having a party when he ran out of coffee. So he went to his neighbor (Debbie) and asked to borrow some.

Some time later, Brian called Debbie and told her how much he missed her coffee. The two later went to Paris where they had the coffee that united them.

Soon after, Brian met Debbie’s son (Dave), who wondered aloud what his dad (Bill) would think of his mother’s new friend.

The next episode showed Debbie in a chic, black dress getting ready for a date with Brian.

They doorbell rang. It was Bill, who insisted they talk over coffee. The doorbell rang again and this time it was Brian. Now what?

This is the commercial soap opera of Taster’s Choice.

It’s a story that has gone too slow for too long. It’s time to move it forward, which is why the next couple episodes in this series should go something like this:

Brian comes in and shares coffee with Bill and Debbie. How awkward.

Debbie leaves the room, comes back and sees Brian and Bill in a big, bloody fight over which coffee is better: Taster’s Choice or the coffee Bill and Debbie fell in love over — Maxwell House, the coffee for indecisive people?

Debbie starts screaming when the doorbell rings. It’s Dave. He has come home from Iowa State just before he leaves for his spring break trip to Florida. He just wants to borrow the Taster’s Choice before he takes off with his friends.

Just like all soap operas, the focus of the story changes.

Dave is excited about his week off. After an exhausting first half of the semester, he doesn’t want to open another book or plant himself in front of another computer for the next week. But he knew he couldn’t have survived it without those seven daily cups of Taster’s Choice.

He and his friends plan to have a blast in Florida. On the drive there, Dave and his friends make a couple stops for some Taster’s Choice with their meals.

Throughout their week in Florida, they order room service at the hotel and order Taster’s Choice with everything they eat. They also meet many college students like themselves.

However, Dave and his friends find they are the only ones drinking Taster’s Choice. Everyone else is drinking beer.

Rather depressed about this discovery, Dave wonders what he should do: enjoy some beer or stick with the familiar aroma of Taster’s Choice? It’s a serious decision that may have a bearing on what he drinks for the rest of his life.

Partly out of curiosity, he succumbs to the peer pressure and decides to join the rest of the crowd for some beer. He leaves his container of Taster’s Choice on a table by itself.

While David is enjoying his beer, several people open the coffee container and make themselves some Taster’s Choice. They enjoy the coffee so much, they actually put down their cans of beer for awhile. Dave, meanwhile, starts on his second pitcher of beer.

Then he witnesses strange occurrences among the drunk crowd. One in particular grabs his attention.

Dave sees one person from the University of Iowa who has a pitcher of beer in her hand. She trips on a stone on the beach. As she is falling face down on the sand, she yells, “Save the beer! Save the beer!!” She gets up, soaked in beer and a chipped tooth in hand.

Deciding to spare any embarrassment of himself, Dave immediately decides to do what the commercial’s producers would want him to: he goes back to Taster’s Choice.

Taster’s Choice fans watching this particular episode start cheering like they won the NCAA Tournament and have tears of joy. They start writing letters in support of continuing the Taster’s Choice series for a second season.

In the last scene of the season finale, Dave and his friends drive back to Iowa drinking about a thousand cups of Taster’s Choice and singing sappy coffee commercial tunes.

The moral of this story: Dare to be different, especially during spring break.

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Shuva Rahim is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Davenport.