Walk up to coffee counter with my empty cup.
Place cup under one of the coffee containers and flip the release valve. Coffee pours slowly out of the dispenser into my cup.
As it is doing so — as I always do — I walk over to the napkins and coffee stirrers to acquire what I need.
A man walks up with his own cup, almost between me and my coffee cup — which is, as we know, in the process of filling up.
He looks at my cup and says, “Whoa! I had no idea you could flip those valves on!”
Me, nonchalantly, “Oh yeah. It’s pretty convenient! I always like to pretend it’s like a ticking time bomb and I only have so much time to grab a napkin and coffee stirrer and get back to my cup before it’s too late.”
He laughs.
My coffee cup is now nearing maximum coffee capacity. This is now a code red.
Keeping calm, I move gracefully to switch the valve off while calmly explaining,
“But then you came along today — and I got a little worried you were going to get between me and my coffee cup. It kind of raised the excitement level.”
“Good thing I didn’t!”
“I know! It could’ve been a catastrophe! Coffee all over the place!”
He laughs, “It looks pretty convenient though. I always just flipped it part way and would occasionally spill coffee on myself.”
“Well now you know!”, I smile.
“I do!” he says.
“Have a good day!”
“You, too!”
And then I walked away from the coffee containers like a man walking away from an explosion without looking.
Felt good.