Hunter Taylor

It was a dark and stormy night in Eauclair, Wisconsin as we drove to Altoona’s Family Restaurant. We thought it would be a pleasant evening dinner; we were so, so wrong.

We were sat, waiting for our menus to arrive, when we saw a grisly sight: a man, whose sole purpose in life was to pour coffee. As this man and his earthy aroma drew near, we could tell that he took his job very seriously.  “Hello, would you like some coffee?” he inquired in a thick Spanish accent. We consented, but we realized that it didn’t actually matter if we did or not seeing as how he had already poured us some steaming coffee.

After he walked off I bit the bullet (metaphorically speaking of course, what actually happened was far worse) and took a sip of this water filtered through ground beans that were likely Brazilian in origin. It had a bold, dark, and sweet flavor. Once we had all finished, a frightening event occurred: he came for refills.  “Would you like some more?” he asked.

As we hurriedly denied seconds, one of the worst possible things happened; he tilted his stained coffee pot over and refilled our cups. Sadly, social etiquette demanded that we at least drink some. After my mother took a few sips, she put her spoon over the top of the mug.

“Hey, my wife wants some more!” my father enthusiastically said to The Coffee Guy as he walked past.

The Coffee Guy then proceeded to ignore my mother’s denials and poured the coffee over the spoon and into her mug.

Eventually we did manage to finish our meal, but then the worst thing that could have happened, happened: he asked us if we wanted coffee to-go. Luckily enough, he did listen to us this time and we managed to leave without overflowing our bowels with more coffee.

Looking back at that horror inducing experience, I’ve decided that everything should be in moderation. Even the best coffee can become dreadful if there is too much of it.