Free Refills

Andy dug into his pocket for a quarter. "Don't worry about it. This one's free." She smiled at him. The diamond in her nose sparkled. "Enjoy," she said cheerily and spun around to the cappuccino machine.

"Thanks," he said, smiling back at her. Andy couldn't help but feel a little guilty as he filled up his mug. Not because he was getting his coffee for free -- he had always thought the refills were overpriced anyway -- but for thinking that everyone here was an evil money-grubbing swine. The girl seemed nice. And the guy mopping up his mess... he was nice too... but the rest of them... well, they owed him free coffee for all the refills he had paid for over the years.

To Andy, it was an undeniable fact that even though there was a pang of guilt that went along with a coffee he didn't pay for, he was owed that coffee. He doctored it up with cream, sugar, chocolate and some kind of brown power that may or may not have been cinnamon -- it could have been nutmeg, but he didn't care. The fixins were free -- whether the coffee was or not.

He grabbed two of the cheap plastic swizzlers -- they were free too, so he always used more than he needed -- and a handful of napkins, and made his way through the maze of tables toward a seat by the window. He stopped to grab a newspaper off a nearby table. The Stompin' Grounds sold newspapers in the lobby, but he never paid for them if he could find one on a table. He sat down at the table near the window and felt amazingly guilt free. This was the first coffee he had ever had that he didn't pay for. Technically, yes, he did pay for it because the one he filled up originally got spilled and he never got to drink it, but because he got to fill his cup at the refill counter and he didn't put a quarter in the basket, it felt free.

Andy pulled out his chair and sat down at a table near the window. He flipped open the newspaper and sipped his coffee as he scanned the sports section. The coffee was sweet, sweeter than he usually liked it, but not unbearable -- especially if the fixins were free. It was still a little too hot for him to enjoy so he put it back down on the table and read the paper.

He liked sitting by the window to read the paper because the natural light was easy on his eyes. The slow jazz from the speakers wafted through the shop like the smell of the brewing coffee. Outside, the snow was blowing across the parking lot and swirling around the corner of the building. The steam from his coffee cup collected in patterns on the window that twisted around, appearing and disappearing like ghosts, and the sound of the wind whirling outside stood the hairs on his arms on end. It was a great day to just sit and read the paper.

Andy took another sip of his coffee and discovered that it had cooled down enough to drink, but that it wasn't too cool to be unpleasant. Perfect. He had been waiting for this -- that window of time in the life of a hot cup of coffee when it reaches absolute perfection -- when it's still hot enough to be soothing, but cool enough to drink comfortably. Unfortunately, without reheating, this moment only lasted about three minutes -- especially in a window seat.