29 Rob Burnett Likes Coffee by Charlie Burnett It’s 9:00 AM and Rob Burnett is driving to his local Dunkin’ Donuts for iced coffee. He uses the Dunkin’ “On The Go” ordering app, and as we approach Exit 34 on the Merritt Parkway, his brow furrows with concentration. With great deliberation, he clicks “Ready to Pick Up.” I ask about the precision of the ritual. “They begin making the coffee the minute you hit ‘Ready to Pick Up.’ The goal is for the server to be putting the coffee on the counter exactly as you enter. Not before. Not after. But exactly,” he says with a desperate need to make sure I understand. I point out that he is ordering iced coffee and that if it sits on the counter for a minute or so, it shouldn’t make much of a difference. He stares at me as if I have two heads. “Well what fun is that?” he asks. When we arrive at the Dunkin Donuts, I feel the tension. His gait is deliberate. We enter and he deflates. The coffee is already on the counter. “Hit it too early. Tomorrow we microadjust. It’s as much art as science.” He arrives home, makes breakfast (egg whites, Ezekiel health bread, ½ of an avocado), reads the newspaper, and by 11 a.m. heads up to his attic office, where he will remain until 5 p.m., writing. His day is different than it used to be. It was March of 1985, and Burnett was at a low point. He had just left a job at a regional newspaper and had badly strained the ligaments of his left ankle while playing basketball. So now he found himself trapped in his childhood bed in North Caldwell, New Jersey with no paycheck and no prospects. His lifelong dream of becoming a writer seemed unlikely. Although Burnett had started writing a screenplay
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