Pete's Log: coffee talk
Entry #1294, (Life in General)(posted when I was 23 years old.)
While I don't normally hold myself to high levels of journalistic standards, I would like to apologize for a slight inaccuracy in my previous entry. When I said 'unsigned long int foo' I meant 'unsigned long long int foo'. My bad.
I can still remember how surprised I was when I realized that coffee can grow mold. Not coffee in a cup to which cream and sugar has been added. That would make sense. No, I was shocked the first time I saw mold growing on leftover coffee in the pot. I think I'd have been less surprised to see mold growing on distilled water.
It never occurred to me that coffee was capable of providing nutrition to any sort of living organism, especially not mold. At home, we never did anything with the leftover coffee at the bottom of the pot until it was time to make more. So naturally, when I found myself on my own, at college, the thought that I should clean out my coffee pot when I'm done with it never crossed my mind. Imagine my surprise, days later, to find that the coffee had not been left unchanged. I felt a certain sense of guilt, I think. Not the guilt of having failed to keep the dorm room at the high levels of cleanliness I demand. No, far worse. It was the guilt that comes from realizing that I do not consume enough coffee.
Lessons of that sort were common when I first got to Notre Dame. Independence was, I felt, a well-earned right, but it was not as simple as I'd imagined. For example, I was quick to notice that a guy who adored Pat Buchanan would not make a good roommate for me. Or that getting to know people in your dorm and in your classes had significant advantages: for one thing you could rely on them to make sure you're awake for tests. Or that the campus laundry service was much more practical if you actually picked up your laundry from time to time.
But this is all beside the point. The point, I think, fled long ago and is now undoubtedly already West of Boise.
Yesterday was July 11 -- 7-11. And so, to celebrate 75 years of being in business, the convenience store chain 7-11 decided to give away free slurpees. This, to me, was incredibly exciting. That is, until I got to a store with Branden and we realized that the free slurpees were being given away in special 7.11 ounce cups. Cute as that is, it's not really worth it. Especially when the new mountain dew slurpee flavor is -- contrary to strict slurpee standards -- rather liquid. But my woes are nothing. Because I just read that a happy couple, which met working at a 7-11, celebrated their wedding at the store they met at, on July 11, at 7:11 in the morning. My life, by comparison, puts the paradise myths of various religions to shame.