You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The fire in my mouth.
It’s burning like a million fire ants biting my esophagus.
It’s like my tonsils are being assaulted by little ice picks and spiked boots worn by those little men who bring Coors Light Beers to thirsty people in coolers and bars.
Why is my tongue dialing 911?
Because of my new coffee thermos.
It is a convex oven of heat collection.
It is a volcano of caffeinated lava.
My nostrils are flaring like a bull whose balls have been cut off and is fighting the matador.
It all begins Monday when I take a sip of coffee from my trusty travel mug.
What the hell is that? I think to myself.
Did I just swallow a worm?
I look down, and part of the seal has come apart.
It looks like the rubber fraying inside a tire that has gone off roading on shards of glass.
The seal is greasy and black and smooth like the belly of a fish.
It looks like an oil spill at the Jersey Shore.
I am pissed. How long have I been drinking rubber, I think to myself.
And that’s a damn good question.
Those who know me know that I don’t like coffee.
I like sugar. I like cream. I like hot liquids. I like a morning buzz. I like the smell of a cocoa bean. I like to hold a mug when I drive. What’s cooler than that, outside of car pooling with an SI Swim Suit model?
So what’s the common denominator for all those things?
Coffee.
But this is not good. This is toxic residue on my lips. I’m drinking the equivalent of three mile island.
I can sort of feel a third hand growing from my navel.
I park my car at work.
“Good morning,” a co-worker says to me with a big friendly smile.
I look at the black smear across my lip. I feel like an extra in Les Miserable.
For some reason, that makes me see red.
“Yeah good morning,” I shout as I rear back and throw the mug at the dumpster 3o yards away.
Now in reality, I am trying to lob it into the dumpster from half a parking lot away. But because of the amount of coffee still sloshing around in the container, the weight content is as stable as the Apollo 13 capsule blowing urine into space.
I have a pretty good arm and suddenly the blueish glass aluminium like container is a fastball heading for hard metal.
CRACK.
The container strikes the dumpster and explodes in a frothy mess that is one part BP Oil disaster and one part Juan Valdez go get a donkey emergency.
“Bad morning?” my co worker says hurrying into the building.
Hmmmm!
Good question.
I walk by the dumpster and look at the little container. It is now shattered blue bits and a dented shell. I see the three mile island toxic oil sludge oozing out of the container.
Half a day later….
“I have a travel mug you can borrow,” my friend says while I relay this story.
So I pour my coffee into the new thermos.
It is immediately different.
The top is narrow, the seals tight like a spinsters purse.
There is a screw on top and a screw on inner seal.
This mug is secure like the NSA.
There is a button that opens allowing a small, stream of concentrated coffee to flow.
I take my first sip on the road.
The coffee exits the container like a ballistic missile of hot.
My tongue is scorched like Sherman’s March across Atlanta.
I jerk my head away
“YOWIE!” I holler
I regain control of the car, since I have suddenly crossed over into the other lane.
The other driver gives me a nasty look as if to say “Can’t handle your coffee rookie?”
That’s when I realize this is the big leagues.
This ain’t no woosie coffee carrier.
I’m drinking from an industrial strength, convex oven of heat storage, nuclear fission of broth brewing, incubating of life, coffee churning hot mug.
My cheeks, the inside of my face, the back side of my eye balls are on fire like they have snorted Tabasco Sauce.
Wow.
I stare at the red, shimmering Thermos.
“Oh so it’s gonna be like that, huh?”
I pull back the slot and stare at the tiny hole.
I cannot see the coffee lurking inside, but I know it’s there, percolating, planning, preparing to assault my tongue, my lips like a tiny liquified savage with a sharpened caffeinated spear.
I put my lip to the top of the vessel. I tightly grip the wheel. I check both my mirrors for other cars in case I have to ditch the car in a sudden explosion of molten metal and facial reconstruction.
I don’t even know what that means.
I begin to sip, ever so slightly, tipping the mug back gently. I sense the liquid heat entering the hole. I turn the air conditioner on setting four and put my face near the dashboard. My hair is blowing back in a frosty tundra like frenzy.
I feel like Admiral Byrd discovering the North Pole.
The cold air from the vents meets the nuclear hot condensed neutron star broth of coffee vapor. I see a smoky vapor trail and hear a pop like the Star Ship Enterprise going into Warp Drive.
The liquid exits the cylinder. It assaults the tip of my tongue. It’s a thousand needles performing an exorcism on my taste buds.
I wince and inhale the air conditioning vents.
I can feel the cold and the hot fighting in my esophagus.
It’s a battle of cold molecules and hot molecules warring, sparring, trying to conquer the other side.
It’s a scene from Braveheart where both armies rush down the hill and they don’t stop fighting till they are dead or the other side is dead.
At the end, it’s a draw, a muted, sad battle field of corpses and blood and lifeless bodies.
I feel this battle waging as it rolls down my esophagus and into my stomach.
It’s a churning, burning, sensation of catastrophic tissue destruction.
I grip the wheel tightly and hold onto the vehicle. I manage to avoid driving into the ditch.
Wow.
That’s a hot ass cup of coffee I think to myself.
I stare at the opening of my new little coffee mug.
I smile.
this is gonna be a challenge my friend. I will drink from you and you will like it.
I blow on the top of the little mug, like a little whistle of air is gonna tame this beast.
The mug winks at me as if to say “I’m hot, but I could learn to like you. We”ll see how it goes.”
And that is my drive to work.
A burned face. A swollen esophagus. An angry motoring public. A coffee mug that knows it kicks ass and takes names.
Will it let me tame it, consume it, drink from it’s marvelous furnace like body?
Battle lines are drawn. Only time will tell.
Life’s Crazy™