Another Lewis Black Moment

Why does it always snow on Free Iced Coffee Day? 

Just to get your goat, Jeremy.  Mother Nature is a cranky old bag like that.  


So, here I am, stuck working from home for the third consecutive monday.  It's not so bad, really...I can still get work done, and telecons are really no different, but it's annoying and makes me a little stir crazy.  This time around, there's about 8" of snow in the Greater Jeremy Area, more is still coming down, my street hasn't been plowed in over 3 hours, and at some point, I'll be outside again shoveling.  Winter sucks.  But that's tangential to the most important point.

It's Free Iced Coffee Day!

So, a somewhat local food chain that we'll refer to for strictly blag purposes as "Doughnuts for Dipping" sent me a thing in the mail a while back.  It's good for a free iced coffee every monday for 2 months.  It's very exciting, because I occasionally like a nice iced coffee.  Occasionally as in, like....once a week or so.  It's normally probably a little less often than that, but when it's free, it's for me.  For three consecutive mondays, I've been snowed in at home, unable (or let's be honest, unwilling) to venture out for a free iced coffee.  This would be great if I were at work.  There's a "Doughnuts for Dipping" location immediately across the street from work, in the same plaza as a deli I like to go to for lunch.  It works out great...one stop equals sandwich, plus iced coffee.  Win-Win!

But, I'm not at work, now am I?

This is not to say that there isn't a convenient location of "Doughnuts for Dipping" near me now.  I just don't want to shovel the driveway, brave the roads and the idiot drivers to drive out to the store for only a free iced coffee when it's 20 degrees outside.  It's really not worth that.  That being said...there are a LOT of "Doughnuts for Dipping" locations nearby.  A rather ludicrous number, actually. 

If I were feeling adventurous, I would need only travel 1.3 miles to arrive at the nearest one.  Should that one be closed for some inexplicable reason, there's another a mere 1.2 miles farther along on the exact same road.  Let's say I'm not traveling that direction, though.  It gets harder at that point, as I would have to venture a full 3.6 miles from my house to get to the closest one that way.  Very fortunately, they're building a new location 0.3 miles down the road from that one.  It's fortunate because without that new location, by golly, you'd have to go an entire 4 miles down that road before you could get a Doughnut for Dipping.  Very conveniently, there's a location 0.1 miles farther own on the other side of the road if that one's not to your liking.  I really wish I was making any of these up.  I have 6 "Doughnuts for Dipping" franchises within 8 miles of my house (Well, technically, 5 with one under construction).  I guess they're not big believers in over saturation. 

It's Already Ground Coffee, Unfortunately

I admit that I have used coffee as a Performance Enhancing Substance

Funny you mention that...your coffee just finished brewing right behind you.

Indeed it has.  One moment please...

Believe it or don't, but it was in fact at this point in typing that Jeremy did go across his office to the coffee maker.

Ahhh...that's better.  Now, where was I?  Oh yes.  I've called you all here today to finally confess that for quite some time at work, I have used coffee as a performance enhancing substance.  Sometimes, getting up at 6AM takes a toll on you, and you just need a little boost to finish out the afternoon.  Today is one of those days, and this little jolt of caffeine here is going to be quite sufficient.  

I don't need to drink coffee.  I can quit anytime I want.   

I can make it through the day without coffee, sure.  But it's a tasty warm beverage (or tasty really-frickin-hot beverage, as my coffee maker produces it) that adds a little flavor to the post-lunch period.  So, I drink coffee, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. 

On a completely unrelated note, Lance Armstrong is going to be on Oprah today to admit to cheating to win cycling races.  His performance enhancing substances were a little more elaborate than a cup of coffee. 

Usually, I'm A Genius

I carefully dry out the inside of my coffee cup before I put water in it to make coffee

I'm sure that's important for some reason.  

I'd like to think so, but I'm pretty sure it's not the case.    Anyway...I have my little routine.  I disassemble the business bits of the coffee maker, which includes the coffee basket and filter screen, and take that, along with my cup, to the sink to clean it out.  My coffee maker doesn't use one of those paper filters, it just has a little bucket with small holes in the bottom.  That thing is filled with coffee grounds (At work, I tend to use pre-ground coffee just to save time.  Everyone knows that Freshly Ground Coffee Tastes Better), and needs to be dumped out and cleaned after every cup.  So, once I've tossed the old grounds, I wash out the basket, screen, and cup so that I don't get diseases or anything.  After that, I dry everything with the supplied paper towels.  This is important for the coffee maker bits and the outside of the coffee cup, since those areas will be the ones dripping water the entire way back to my office, and nobody wants that.  Because That's How You Get Ants.  

Anyway...for no apparent reason, I take this same time to carefully dry out the inside of the coffee cup...you know...the part where the coffee goes.  Ostensibly, I'm doing this so that any future coffee is not watered down by the extra water, but here's the problem: my coffee maker is one of those single-cup brewing thingies that only holds one cup of water at a time.  The first thing that I do after I dry out the cup is fill it with water to take back to the coffee maker.  I don't know why I do this, but I can't seem to stop.