Pants

I used to fix espresso machines. When I started this job, I couldn't tell you the difference between an americano, cappuccino, or latte. My coffee experiences had been limited. When I was a teen, I drank the stuff, just to stay awake after a hard night of partying followed by a hard night of working at Burger King. The black, oily fast food drip that no one in their right mind should quaff. Those were my first coffee experiences.

In the Navy, it was the same thing. Attending "A" school in Great Lakes, Illinois, my roommate would brew a pot with his home brewer, then we'd settle down for the night, and mostly talk about Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes. Thanks to Jarod Williams, I know a hefty amount of minutiae about that series without having watched a substantial amount of episodes.

I loved that job. At that point in my life, this was the best job I ever had. I showed up, dismantled and reassembled machines, occasionally going on long distance service runs to exotic locations like Union Gap, Yakima or Sequim for emergencies. Also, we could drink as much of the coffee as we wanted. This is how I learned to steam milk, and after many different experiments, and taste tests came to the conclusion that even though a cappuccino is my favorite drink, you can't beat a double latte when it comes to economy. You spend a lot of time making a cap, for less quantity. Lattes take far less time and give you much more beverage. Very practical.

Our claim to fame was a super automatic machine that was manufactured by a company located in Switzerland. A super auto is not a child's toy. I wasn't a novice tech at this point, having worked on radars, and navigational equipment in the Navy, but to this day, even as a heating tech, I still think those super autos were tough cookies!

I blame the coffee. The water didn't help either. From what I saw, most issues with the machines had to deal with coffee either grinding to fine, or to coarse. Not enough, too much, or ending up some place it didn't belong throwing a wrench in the process. Forgive the bad pun, but organic materials will take on a life of their own, and this it would do, with a vengeance.

Since we were a distributor, the Swiss company felt obligated to send their technical rep over once in a while to see how things were going stateside. I still remember him quite well. Ueli was dressed head to toe in black. He wasn't tall, or short. He had black spiky hair, and he spoke irony filled English in a Swiss German accent. My kind of guy.

A conversation came up about coffee, as it is a well known fact that Americans drink their joe different than a Euro would . . . as we do most things I suppose. The question turned to taste: Bitter, or smooth, which was preferred? Ueli observed our bickering with a knowing half smile on his face and said something that I've held onto all these years and can't imagine ever letting go of.

"What's the difference?" he said, "Coffee is like pants. You can't tell someone how to wear their pants in a way that makes them comfortable."

This is a common knowledge, simple, effective, statement, that I might go so far to proclaim as a universal truth. It struck a chord with me, because for a long part of my life, I let people tell me how to wear my pants.

Not any more.