Keep a Lid On It, Properly
January 20, 2011 Leave a comment
You’ve already discovered this. The paper cup and plastic lid connection, that is.
You purchase a medium-sized coffee and the coffee-teer gives you a scalding hot brew in a paper cup. You quickly and carefully place a cardboard bootie on the cup so as to insulate your hand from third degree burns. But, no one tells you that you have to line up the plastic lid in a certain way so as to not allow searing droplets of forever staining brown stuff to fall from the mouth of the cup onto your finally clean and pressed khakis. In this case, you are on your own; you are up a creek without a stir stick. In coffee parlance: da solo.
In my continuing search for Quality, Quality which embraces both the classical scientific method and classical romanticism, I have finally pushed through the internal ‘gumption traps’ that kept my coffee randomly escaping my coffee cup. I refused to answer the question with anger, anxiety, boredom and value rigidity. I hypothesized, tested and retested. I went for long walks. I took deep breaths. I meditated. Then, the answer came.
After much deliberate testing and much laid back intuition I found the answer to the leakage problem: Place the opening of the plastic lid on the mouth of the paper cup at 180 degrees from the seam of the paper cup.
In the past I had noticed that as the opening was placed closer to the seam, dribbling would occur, thereby forever making stains in random unwanted places on my clothes. But, with proper placement of the lid, dribbling is contained. The cup of coffee is then safely drunk in any attire including wedding gear and with gumption
Now, you’re on your own.
(with thanks to Phaedrus and Robert M. Pirsig)
Cindy Wity 