Third worst cup of coffee ever

There are, of course, worse things that Eva Airlines could have done than serve me a cup of coffee as we sat suspended over the Pacific. They could have put the plane into a nosedive. They could have asked me to sit outside. They could have chopped me into small pieces and served me as a worthy substitute for the breakfast ‘eggs’. Eva Air did none of these things. They did however; serve me the second worst cup of coffee I have ever tried. It is out of a profound respect for my few and arguably innocent readers that I will not describe this cup of coffee. I am, in the end, a humanitarian. I care deeply about the wellbeing and mental health of my fellow humans. Though this cup of coffee did incalculable harm to myself I see no reason to spread this catastrophe across the world as they have done. With this said I am also posting it to my blog where it is my self-appointed mandate to both muse and complain about my travels. Thus, instead of describing my second worst cup of coffee ever (courtesy of Eva Airlines) I will briefly tell the tale of my third worst cup and then trust in the world’s imagination to grasp the tragedy of the second worst. At no point will we discuss the absolute worst cup. Doing so would violate the laws of nature and man. The third worst cup: When the alarm went off several years ago I awoke only knowing that I was in a hotel room. I could not have told you the date, the day of the week nor even the city of my current location. It was only when my clouded eyes could see through the moonshine induced headache that I managed to discern my location as a Hampton Inn. The nondescript wall prints that both decorate the walls and still manage to be both of nothing and about nothing are the true genius of that particular hotel chain. Stumbling into the bathroom I fought with soap hermetically sealed in paper wrapping, and a washcloth no less coarse then a cat’s tongue. The water from the sick stank of either industrial effluent, or the agricultural discharge of a pig farm. I still don’t know which. Perhaps if the moonshine had been kinder to my mental facilities the night before or kinder to my pounding head I would have thought to equate the water’s stench with the upcoming cup of coffee. However, I did not. Instead of thinking I switched on my body’s autopilot and filled the in-room coffee maker with the light grey water coming from the bathroom sink. It never occurred to me that this hotel had stood a peculiar test of time and for decades had stood on its nameless street corner in the city I still could not find either in my head or on a map. It did never occurred to me that every other traveler to this room had had the good sense to leave the coffee alone. It never occurred to me that the housekeeping staff would never discard an unused packet of ‘coffee’ and would instead leave the ‘Good Morning Courtesy Basket’ as it had always been for time out of mind. Perhaps the thick layer of dust should have tipped me off, but the layer of dust covering my conscious brain was even greater than the layer covering the coffee. It is a little known fact that coffee will not decompose with time. Instead roasted, ground, and then neglected beans of the coffee plant are magically transformed into mythical kitty litter to be used by the various hell cats while they roam the earth doing the unholy bidding of Beelzebub as he rampages against the forces of the righteous and the just. These then were the two ingredients that slammed together in my skull as I tried to end my hangover, and determine my location in space and time. As I lay gasping on the floor I might have forgiven the damage done to my body if only my headache had lessoned. Nothing improved however, and I will never forgive the Hampton Inn. I will also not forgive Eva Airlines. On the positive side it should be noted that the non-dairy creamer could not be said to be at fault. Though its age was undoubtedly equal to the coffee its chemical composition had not changed one iota with the passing of time.