It is cold and raining right now. I have exactly one cup of espresso left, with no unbrewed coffee sitting in the jar. I want coffee. Can I have that last cup? I had to check the weather first.

Ah... sunny and 73º. I go to the kitchen, poor the last two shots into a mug, add milk and pop it into the microwave. The timer just went off, so I am about to go to the kitchen again, get the coffee and, while returning, turn on the lights—an inexcusable need for June.

You, reader of this exercise in high timesuckism, must be thinking, Specular, why don't you just buy more coffee? That Jewell is three blocks away, and you went to the Happy Food Store to buy milk after you knew you had no more coffee? Why would you imperil your finely balanced state of caffeination with such reckless disregard to the reality of your java-impoverished situation?

But what I know and you do not is that Jewell does not carry good coffee. But the Grind—just a block away—has tasty Intelligentsia coffee you could buy. Okay, I forgot about that and now I'm fairly embarassed about the fact. But the truth remains that I prefer to drink Red Eye espresso from Metropolis and I'm not going to have a second cup of joy if it means tomorrow morning I have to get on my bike and ride many cold and soggy miles just to get more beans. No, that would not do.

But tomorrow will be 73º and sunny. So I can drink my coffee now and disabuse you of these silly, practical ideas you are trying to convince me of.