The Coffee Thermos

Oh how I adore my coffee.  The smell of fresh grounds, the sound of the coffee maker as it brews my dark morning wake up call, the aroma filling the house with its delicious color….

I drink roughly 3 pots of coffee a day.  Even in the evenings.

My new barn schedule with two (not one, but two, now) horses has been quite the interruption in my caffeine consumption habits.  A problem quickly solved by the use of a thermos, of course.

I’ve always been the frugal one.  I save wrapping paper to use again.  I recycle.  I find new life for old things.  I also don’t like to purchase something if I already have one that will do the job just fine.

Unless we are talking tools.  I can’t have enough sockets, screw drivers, hammers, rechargeable batteries for my drill, jumper cables, sandpaper, dremel parts, and saw blades.  (I know it is not the norm for a woman to be so obsessed with tools, but I’d rather fix it myself than pay someone else to do it for me.  Unless it is electrical work.  I still have a scar on my hand from the breaker box.)

I digress.

I was lucky enough to find and marry a man who loves coffee just as much as I do.  He was in the Army when we met, and as any army wife or soldier can tell you, there is not just one thermos in the house, there is a family of thermoses.  Thermosii.  Whatever.

They get acquired over time, because when you go out on a spur run and have to be up for two days straight, you need coffee.  A 6 million dollar coffee pot (also known as an M1A1 Abrams…using the 600 degree exhaust port) is not always just hanging out for you to make your coffee.  The soldier will make several pots of coffee, filling several thermoses (thermosii?) to take with him on his journey.

My husband was in the army long enough to acquire no less than 5 thermoses (thermosii?) of varying size.  He is currently a truck driver (yet another profession that needs massive caffeine consumption) and has two on the truck with him. If you are keeping track, that leaves 3.

Well, we kept two on the top of the fridge, and one has been designated for camping so it resides in the garage.

I decided the other day that I was going to make a niiice big pot of coffee and take it with me to the barn, using the biggest thermos in the house.  Which was on top of the fridge.  So I got my little step stool (we hobbits can’t reach the top of the fridge without one) and got the thermos.

It’s a pretty little thing.  It will hold an entire pot of coffee.  It is stainless steel, the handle is in good repair, and has a cute little sticker on it from my husband’s former army days.  I love this thermos, but have never used it until now.

I remember the day it came into my world.  I had gotten married two weeks before, and after we came home from our honeymoon, hubby moved from the barracks into the house my parents bought for me.  It was tucked neatly inside a box labeled “IMPORTANT”.  My brand new husband handed me the box and said “we need to keep track of these things, it has very important military documents inside.”

I set about unpacking the box and put the thermos away, on top of the fridge.

A few months later, we moved onto base.  Into base housing.  The thermos was again placed carefully on top of the fridge with its siblings.  It went missing for a while, but at the time I guessed that it had been taken out to the field and didn’t question it.

It turned back up right around the time we were moving again because my husband was out of the army.  Roughly three years after we got married.

It was again tucked neatly inside a box labeled “IMPORTANT” and as he was unpacking that box, he handed me the thermos and said “here, put this somewhere.”  Back to the top of the fridge it went.

We didn’t use it when we were living in that house.  The other thermoses were in use either on the truck or when we went camping.  3 years later, we moved again, and purchased this house.

Yet again, the stainless steel thermos with the army unit sticker found its way back to its perch on the fridge.

We have been here almost exactly a year.  It doesn’t feel like it, but we have.  Life changes and moves so quickly sometimes, you tend to forget things that are slightly less significant than birthdays, first days of school, H1N1 scares, band concerts, getting rid of the “baby seat” in exchange for a “booster seat” with great pomp and circumstance under the order of the little girl with a big voice.  My beloved thermos was one of these things.

I had forgotten my favorite little thermos until the other day, when I was going to spend most of my day playing with ponies and wanted to take my coffee with me.

To fill a thermos, you have to first remove the attached cup.  Once that is off, you have another handy little doohicky to take off.  It is the fill point, as well as the drain point.  If you unscrew it just so, you can pour your coffee with little spillage.  This small invention was a godsend to coffee lovers just as myself.  I’d rather spill a beer than coffee.

Coffee is sacred.

Coffee (amongst a few other select things) is proof that God loves me, and wants me to be happy.

Well, the little pour spout doohicky didn’t want to come off.

Remember my tool fetish?  Yes.  This means I have multiple sizes of channel locks.  I keep a medium set in the kitchen.  “Why?”  you ask?  Pickle jars.  Jelly jars.  Apparently I can add “cranky thermos” to that list too, because the channel lock helped me get the thermos open.

I felt accomplished and just a little more “grown up” than I had felt a mere hour before.  For the first time in my 33 years, I was using a thermos.  A real, honest to god, thermos.

Until, that is…I discovered the coffee inside my precious thermos.

Cold.  Dank.  Putrid smelling.  Ugh.

I dumped it out, and started thinking back to the last time it was possibly used.  I came up with “4 years” and started fuming.  My husband is rarely so irresponsible, and technically it was HIS thermos I was adopting, so it couldn’t possibly be my fault.

I dumped the contents into the sink and discovered sludge.  The bottom was not shiny, it was black and gooey.  I spent 30 minutes of my life cleaning the sludge out.  I poured fresh coffee in, screwed the doohicky back on, put the lid/cup in its proper place, and put it by the door.

I stopped to update my Facebook with the upset that was now the thermos.

Always, always, ALWAYS check the thermos your husband hands you and says “put this somewhere”. If you don’t, you will go to use it 4 years later, and discover it still has coffee in it.

I sighed heavily, and made my way out to the barn.

By the time I got home, the stalls were cleaned, horses worked and fed, my usually difficult mare was on her best behavior, my usually calm and compliant mare was horrific.  I was tired, dirty, and out of coffee.

A few hours later, my husband called.  I immediately went into attack mode over the thermos.  I was having quite a rant about it, and when I got to the part of “Do you have ANY idea what I found in that thermos???  I found FOUR YEAR OLD COFFEE.” he stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Baby,” he said to me in his sweetest, ‘I’m kissing your ass so I don’t lose mine’ voice, “Baby, is that the thermos with the unit sticker on it?”

“Yes.”  I snapped.  “It is.  I like that thermos.  I wanted to use it and appropriate it for barn use.  Why?”

“Because, my beautiful wife, that was not four-year old coffee.”  He paused.  “I was cleaning out the HUMVEE after Col So-and-So left, and I found it.  It had been his, but he left it behind.  Finders keepers.”

I was a little in shock.  Col So-and-So was “pre wifey days”.  By about 2 years.  “You mean to tell me…”

“Yes baby,” he purred.  “That coffee wasn’t four years old.  It was NINE years old.  I never opened it.  I never used that thermos.”  Then, my loving husband of seven years, burst out laughing so hard he dropped the phone.  He snerked.  He coughed, choked and sputtered.

“You asshole,” I said.  “You of all people should know to check your gear before you stow it.  NINE YEARS.  That coffee was NINE YEARS OLD.  You owe me for this, mister man.  You owe me big.  If you don’t stop laughing, I’m going to facepalm you with a two-by-four.”

I sighed again, and went to comment on my Facebook status.

Oh this is lovely. I just found out that was not 4 year old coffee. That was NINE year old coffee. It has been moved no less than FOUR times. My memory was just refreshed by a very giggly husband. He needs a facepalm with a 2×4.

I’m not sure who isn’t going to let whom live this down.  What I do know is that this is now MY thermos and he isn’t allowed to touch it.