When it comes to Caffeine, the now closed coffee shop across the street from El Camino, a particular Joni Mitchell song with a disturbingly catchy sample comes to mind: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”

Mitchell speaks that truth. That Chuck Norris truth. That Paul Pierce truth. That bitter kind of truth.

The truth is that the El Camino College community did not know what they had until Caffeine, EC’s unofficial coffee shop, had served its last cup of coffee in December.

Daniel, the last owner and manager of the coffee shop, informed the regulars on a Monday that Caffeine wasn’t going to be open during the winter session. The Friday of the same week was its last day open.

It seemed that the action to close came out of nowhere, but that’s being a little naive. It’s always about money. With the economy the way it is, people are looking for a more economic way to get their coffee.

Caffeine was also notoriously slow during the winter and summer semesters, especially during the winter. The combination of that and the economy left them with no choice but to close.

This has left an unsuspecting spring college campus and delinquent students alike wondering, “Where to now?”

Caffeine was more than just a place that offered beverages with a smile and a chair to go along with. It fulfilled a service by providing bored college students a place full of distraction to entertain them while they waited for whatever they had to do.

Admit it. Caffeine killed time.

Caffeine was the absolute best way to kill some extra time around EC, as well as a safe haven for a number of characters. It could be Bud the plumber, talking your ears off about the 24″ inch rims on his work van.

You could have gotten caught-up talking to Greg, the cigarette-smoking, hapkido instructor who will talk about the Bible as long as you have the time to spare, and some.

Talking to either of these two could easily consume an hour or more of your time.

Did you use/abuse their Internet connection, possibly updating your Facebook profile every fifteen minutes while looking at YouTube videos? Caffeine offered free Wi-Fi, which alone has soaked up hours and hours of boredom.

You might have even been part of that very, very small group of students who used it as a study area; that one in a million who actually studied and worked on homework.

Whether you belong to any of the above, or had a different excuse for being there, there was one truth that could not be denied. One bitter truth. Caffeine was something to do when you had to do something.

What will we do without you, Caffeine? Where will we go?

The answer? “To class.”