Introduction to the Coffee List

It's just an ordinary day. I get up, brush my teeth, get dressed, and head out for a run of the mill breakfast date. As I stumble down the stairs and into the parking lot of my apartment building, I'm thinking about the day ahead of me. I'm going over and over the questions I had previously thought of for the person I'm meeting with. On my way, I'm tapping the steering wheel to the beat of the music on the radio, trying desperately to stay calm and to not have a mental breakdown. I get out of my car, and ever so cooly enter the Dunn Bros coffee shop. I scan the room and my eyes finally fall on a table in the corner where J.K. Rowling is sitting...

No this has never really happened to me, but how I wish it would.

I am convinced that every person subconsciously holds a list in their mind of people that they want to meet. Famous people that is. Or not necessarily famous. Just people that you otherwise wouldn't ever have a chance of meeting, except in your wildest dreams. They are those people who you admire, hold in high regard, and wonder what happens inside their heads on a daily basis. Part of my list (in no real order) includes:

Jesus

Barack Obama

Rob Bell

C.S. Lewis

Rowan Atkinson

E.O. Wilson

etc. (this list continues with no end in sight...people are added on a daily basis)

It's the coffee list.

It's the list of people that you want to sit down with and over a cup of coffee (or tea or whatever), pick their brains about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. To find out everything about them, what their favorite color is, what they think of the world, and why they are the way they are.

It doesn't necessarily have to be people that you agree with or support. I would certainly add Hitler and Joseph Kony to my list, along with a number of other criminals or societal outcasts. I would want to talk to them and find out why they believe what they do, and so on.

There are no rules. They can be dead or alive. From any country or century. From any and all social, economic, geographic, or political arena. The setting is this: You and your person of choice at a coffee shop. That's it. You can ask anything. There are no boundaries. No security risks. No one else to get in the way (except maybe a translator). It can be a famous person, or that family member who died a few years ago.

Who's on your list and why?

What would you ask them?