Coffee: Cream, no Salt

In October of 2001, Bill, my mom and I drove to Montana to check on Bill's place in The Yaak (The only town in the U.S. that starts with a "The"). It was just after 9/11 and heading for the hills near the Idaho/Canada border felt like an escape of sorts. The 10 day adventure that awaited would involve no indoor plumbing, electricity from the generator we would enjoy sparingly, no tv, and a radio that picked up only CBC news from Alberta. But there was coffee. And I could live with that. On day one, we set up shop; cleaning the house, getting the generator going and rifling through the 50 gallon barrels of flour, popcorn and other necessities for Armageddon. We were really just visiting, but it felt like we were digging in. While mom and I worked on the wood stove, Bill made coffee, prepared it for us and brought it over near the fire which was now driving away the cold, damp air. Coffee would be good. I took a sip, looked at mom who had the same look of disgust and came to the conclusion that this would be a long cup of coffee and a long 10 days in the Yaak. Bill makes awful coffee. It would seem, that a man who drinks his coffee black, is quick to put any white substance in someone else's coffee. It was salt that sweetened that cup of coffee and thank God he had more beans to grind.

Re-enactment of this morning's cup of coffee (Part 1)

I thought about Bill this morning as I spit my coffee out. I usually have a cup at home before work, but since it's been mandated that we all conform to this arbitrary and unnatural time change, I required a second cup to get me through my Everglades trip. (I'll take this moment to welcome this blog's 50th subscriber - Estelle! Lots of big words in the last sentence kid, but basically your Uncle Petie is annoyed that we had to change the clocks an hour...grr). So anyway, I stop at the Valero convenient store, poured a cup, mixed in my 4 teaspoons of the sweet stuff, prayed that no one was judging my sugar intake and took a big old sample swig. And flashed back to 2001.

Why they put the unlabeled salt container next to the Splenda, Sweet n'Low and non-dairy creamer is beyond me. But needless to say it was naaaaasty.

Re-enactment of this morning's cup of coffee (Part 2)