For the Love of Coffee

I am a gas station coffee junkie. I love it. Yes, I realize that in the today’s coffee saturated society, gas station coffee is like going to a steak house and ordering a bologna sandwich, but I love it. Particularly the cappuccino that comes in the purple cup with the black lid from the S&S. I don’t know what it’s called, but I always get french vanilla most of the year, and pumpkin spice around the holidays. I need it. Not like I need air, because I can live without coffee, but more like I need toilet paper. I can function without it, but it’s gonna suck.

The only problem with gas station coffee is that for reasons unknown to anyone but the manufacturer, the coffee is heated to about 7000 degrees. It’s so hot that I think it’s really steam that comes out of the little nozzle and is caught by the cup. You can’t handle the outside of the cup without wrapping a couple of napkins around it, and don’t even think about drinking it for at least half an hour. This is where the torture begins.

I get that delicious tall cup of coffee into my car and the heavenly steam starts to fill the tight space and overwhelm my senses. Maybe just a tiny sip. I lift the cup to my mouth and the steam from the tiny drinking hole in the lid gives my lips a little thump. Ok, not yet. Put it down. The smell continues to surround me. My brain is breaking into song, “that coffee smells good, that coffee smells good, I wanna drink it, gimme that coffee.” I dance a little to the coffee song in my head. I can’t help it. It’s catchy. Ok, I have to do the trick, because I have to have a sip of that coffee.  This should only be attempted by experienced coffee drinkers. I seal my lips around the drinking hole and gently blow the steam out of the tiny anti-suction hole. Once the air coming out of the tiny anti suction hole is cool, I know I have cooled the very top layer of the coffee. I can carefully tip the cup and slurp off the top, cooled layer. Just a little. A big slurp will result in the loss of my sense of taste for at least a week. Momentarily satisfied, I set the coffee cup back down. I spend the remaining 20 minutes or so alternately dancing to the coffee song in my head and blistering my own mouth.

The coffee does not need to be this hot, but since it is, they should really put one of those temperature sensors on the cups. Like the ones on fish tanks, but slightly modified. It would look more like this: