Coffee

You'd think if we can put a man on the moon, I could get a decent cup of coffee in Iraq. Well, we can and I can, but that's not the point. The point is that I can't get a good cup of coffee from any of the six Braun coffee makers that populate the Company space.

In the DFAC we have a choice between "Coffee Strong" and "Coffee Light". Since I like my beans with a little bite, I had been getting my caffeine from the strong side. However, one morning there was a crowd in the way of the tap, so I tried the Light. There was no difference. Both were sort of crappy cups of coffee - neither stronger nor lighter – but tolerable.

So my pattern now is to get a cup after breakfast on my way to the office, then return to the DFAC for another cup just before they close at 0800. We have to go in the back door for this supplemental dose since, if we used the front door, the Army Specialist who counts people entering the DFAC would count us again (that's her specialty), and KBR would charge the taxpayers another $35. No way is their coffee worth that.

At 1000 or so, it's time for more, so I often walk to the back of the building to the back side of the building franchise location of Green Beans Coffee Worldcafe, an odd little café that sells three dollar lattes. I could get a muffin or a smoothie, I suppose, but I usually just get a three dollar latte. Primarily, because (as alluded to above), to local coffee is crap.

Imagine if you will, filling the coffee basket all the way to the top, then adding half a pot of water, then letting it cook all day long. That's what it tastes like on a good day. Oh, did I mention not cleaning the pot first? That's the special ingredient. What worse, is that the keepers of each individual pot believe that theirs is superior to all others (some even grind their own beans prior to sacrificing them to the gods of awful strained bean water). For me, the best bad coffee is still bad coffee, so I'm stuck drinking three dollar lattes.

Doing without is an option, of course, but a nice cuppa is one small reminder of the pleasures of home.

Like milk is a small reminder of home, of which there's been none of for the past four or five days. No fresh eggs, either. No peanut butter. No carrots. No Gatorade. No orange juice. No white bread for the grill cheeses. The sign outside the DFAC say it's "due to convoy". What the sign doesn't say is due to what. "Due to convoy", of course. Due to convoy being hijacked, perhaps?

That's the current trouble. The story goes that there were forty tractor trailer rigs headed up from the ports at Basra full of milk and eggs and Gatorade. Each vehicle had a driver and a shooter. Then, at some quiet location south of here, an oil tanker pulled across the road, stopping the first vehicle. Next, a second oil tanker pulled behind the last vehicle, cutting off any escape. As per plan, some 300 armed men appeared from the ditches and vegetation. The coalition surrendered. The trucks were stolen.

No one was injured, but some jihadist is now eating my carrots.

The talk is that lunch will be replaced with MREs until we can reestablish supply lines. Other talk is that I leave the IZ tomorrow.