Steamy Seductions

Okay, I give up. Winter’s won.

I’m not throwing in the towel because it’s the fourth time this winter that I’ve seen significant snow in Georgia. And for all you northerners, the Atlanta definition of “significant snow” is a simultaneous snowflake sighting and a mob at the Publix akin to Black Friday at WalMart.

Neither is my dachshund’s refusal to go outside the reason for my surrender to the season.

The way I know that winter has won? I actually consumed a hot beverage this morning. I risked scalding my tongue to get my insides warm.

It’s like this: I don’t drink coffee. I never developed a taste for it. And why would I sip hot tea when I can gulp Chick-Fil-A unsweetened iced tea? It’s kind of like the old adage that “wine is fine but liquor is quicker.” I drink tea to quench my thirst, and cold goes down faster than hot.

In fact, I’ve estimated that in my lifetime I have consumed enough unsweetened iced tea to float a mid-size cruise ship. My kids have already been instructed that upon my death I wish to be cremated and sprinkled in the drive-thru of Chick-Fil-A.

But here’s the irony: my house has a built-in Miele coffee system, an expensive machine that has a steam nozzle and other features appealing to coffee enthusiasts. I can program it to speak to me in German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, or French. It has a counter that will display the number of cups of coffee or espresso that have been dispensed since it was purchased. It even has a security system that I can set to keep people unfamiliar with the unit from using it.

Even crazier is the fact that I, the one who does not drink coffee, am the one who ordered the machine. And it’s been used exactly six times in seven years. I don’t know how to set the language or the security system, and I haven’t ever gotten the German warning that means it’s time to descale the unit after 100 coffees.

My thinking in purchasing the Miele coffee system was that it could be used to circumvent my then-husband’s serious Starbuck’s addiction. Why not put in our own mocha machine? I thought. That, combined with the fabulous office he had over the garage, the beautiful pool, the home theater, and the fully-equipped home gym, meant he never needed to leave the house.

My plan didn’t work so well. As it turns out, it didn’t matter what was in this home. He liked to get his mochas elsewhere.

A month or so ago, he began texting me in an effort to have me meet with him so that he could present some options for paying the money he owes me. To my mind, there’s only one acceptable option, and that is for him to pay me the money he owes me. But I guess he needed to try. The conversation went something like this:

HIM: Coffee tonight 630 pm

ME: Excuse me?

HIM: Coffee starbucks

ME: I don’t drink coffee.

HIM: I forgot . . . organic water with a twist of lime

(Okay, you did forget. It’s unsweetened tea. And there’s no such thing as organic water)

HIM again: I bring the lime btw

(At this point, I’m grossed out and stop answering his texts, which strangely continue throughout the course of the day)

HIM: ??Yes?

HIM: Ok I will see u then

HIM: Seriously just biz . . . .

HIM: Seriously if u can’t that’s fine just let me know


Needless to say, I didn’t show up at Starbucks that day. And while winter may have won today, it will be a Kalte Tag in der Holle before I ever succumb to his steamy seductions.

That’s German for “cold day in hell.”