Lately I’ve glommed onto the John Carter Theory of Caffeine Equilibrium: The substance is best activated by radical changes in temperature in the body.  Achieving this requires a hot caffeine beverage and a cold caffeine beverage and I’ve taken to a can of diet Mountain Dew tempered with the mediocre our coffee machines accept.  Mind you, I’m not a chronic tea liker, given the choice, I’d take just about any store brand diet cola above $600 a pound Spanish oolong grown in Moslem Andalusia through the ashes of Tartars killed during the Battle of Tours (which I think is impossible), but our facilities folks seemed to have forgotten that people freeze at temperatures above water and its still better than the emitic free coffee.

I approached the machine, pulled out a tea single-serving packet and dropped it into the pouch slot stunning the man next to me microwaving a tea bag.

Him: That makes tea too?  Does it taste ok?
Me: It tastes like tea.
Him: How can you have the same device do both?
Me: It’s just a hot water dispenser with a packet cutting device.
Him: That’s genius, I always wondered where the packets went for my coffee.  I thought you reused them.
Me: Nah, that pull out bin holds the empty ones and has to be emptied once in a while.
Him: How wonderful!  You’ve saved me so much time, you’re probably one of those guys in engineering.
Me: Yeah.  It can even make hot water.

I’m not sure how he was unaware of this feature set as “Coffee”, “Tea” and “Hot Water” are three of the labeled buttons on the device.  I hope he goes back and tells all his marketing chums about his amazing discovery, although I’m not sure if they’re equally dim as they may herald him as a genius more than a twit.  I hope I run into him in a similar situation and then I’ll make hot chocolate with the machine and BLOW HIS MIND!