With Two You Get Tachycardia

At one point in my software career I was responsible for developing, maintaining, and supporting a certain piece of software[1]. At this point I happened to sit between the marketing and marcomm folks at work. A vendor brought each of those departments (one and two people respectively) a gift basket.

The free coffee at this particular job was pretty bad. Coffee shops were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are today. I rode a motorcycle to work so a travel mug wouldn't work. The only thermos I trusted to survive on a bike cost over $100, so most days I made do with the caffeinated nastiness they called coffee. Working 60-70 hours a week and working with youth evenings and weekends, I needed the caffeine.

Remember those gift baskets? Included in each was a quart of chocolate covered espresso beans. Since none of the recipients cared for those, they ended up on my desk. around noon I could have kissed my co-workers; they were speaking my love languages-- chocolate and espresso!

These were really good chocolate covered espresso beans. They were practically magical beans, delicious and potent. I'd munch a couple, work on code or documentation, munch a couple, support a customer, munch a couple...

Matthew, Pam, and Angela began to laugh as I typed faster and talked faster to customers. It got to the point I asked what they were laughing about. "You can't type that fast!"

"Huh!" I thought. "Not before now, anyway."

About two o'clock they all came to my cube. "Dude, what are you doing?"

"I'm working! What are you doing? What are you staring at?" I looked down. My hands were off the keyboard, but my fingers were still going a mile a minute, practically a blur. On the desktop.

"Stop that!" I told my fingers. I don't think they even knew I had spoken. I moved my hands off the desk, but found that as I talked they kept moving. I thought if speed freaks I'd known in college, and said so. I spoke too quickly, with far more words than necessary and plenty of stuttering.

Pam started. "Did you eat two whole cans in two hours???" She picked up an empty chocolate covered espresso bean can.

Matthew picked up the other one. "He ate half this one. I'm going to put it in my desk until tomorrow."

"That's probably a good idea," I said. Or thought, anyway. The way it came out was, "Hey! No! Gimme those!"

Pam and Angela blocked the way as Matthew carried the rest of the food of the gods off. Relieved and infuriated, I growled a thanks, sat back down, and returned to thrashing my poor keyboard.

I'd calmed down enough by 6PM they let me ride my motorcycle to dinner.

They were gone when I got back from eating. I was proud of my self control; I had no more magical beans that night.

Mainly because Matthew locked his desk.

 

Notes
1. Its name was Co-Xist, which is utterly irrelevant to the story so why are you reading this?

The Great Coffee Disaster

That should be disasters. Plural.

OK, full disclosure. I haven't been involved in any monumental coffee disasters, at least of the magnitude that requires the EPA or WHO to get involved. But on a personal, need to wake up level... well, that's when most coffee disasters happen, when you need to make coffee but can't function because you need to make coffee. Classic Catch 22 writ small.

I think I have made almost every mistake you can make with a Mr Coffee style drip coffee maker:

• No grounds- great for making hot water, which is great of your name is Eb and you want Hot Water Soup for breakfast.
• No filter, no grounds- ibid
• Using beans you forgot to grind- great if you want soggy coffee beans to eat. Except that they happen to be revolting.
• No basket, no pot- great if you need an excuse to clean the counter and floor before you are awake enough to do that, either.
• No filter- great if you like the grounds in your coffee a la wild west coffee at a campfire.
• No water- the only disaster here is the wait while you wonder where your coffee is and then finally add water.
• No pot- a lovely coffee waterfall, only a disaster if you don't get your mouth under it, or don't like your coffee scalding and black with counter crud.
• Double grounds- hardly a disaster, but it does waste some for the coffee ability of the grounds, which is a terrible tragedy.
• Double water- ugh. Weak coffee is disgusting!
• Pouring water into the grounds- makes a mess, costs time, wastes coffee and water (in a drought you think about these things).

Eons ago we used a stove top percolator. We still have it for emergencies. We made nearly all the mistakes you can with that as well; there are less possible. At least we never melted the pot leaving it empty over a flame too long.

Sadly we never had a stove top espresso or single cup maker. Apparently you can launch boiling grounds 8 feet if you leave the strainer out. Or at least that's what I gather from author Sally Hanan's Facebook page.

The worst was the day I was making a full pot (12 "cups" (who uses a 6 oz coffee cup?)) extra strength and dumped the grounds in without a basket or pot, putting most of the grounds on the floor... in front of everyone I was making coffee for. And it was half of what I had left. Two grinders full later, after sweeping and cleaning the counter, we started a pot of coffee. Thankfully the next morning I found my emergency cache of Starbucks Double Shots.