By David O’Boyle

You go in

These rest stops now

And the coffee pots

Have been replaced

By these high tech machines

That make you

plug in your order on a digital screen.

Then

To carry out

this order

they grind out the exact amount of beans

Based on some scientific strength formula.



Compare this to the nearly extinct

Old school gas station coffee pot

Ain’t there something Nostalgic about it

About the shitty gas station coffee pot

With its steamy dinked almost dirty

Glass

With the liquid measurements scraped

Off

From too many dishwashings

Or too few dishwashings

Or maybe both.



Yet we see through its transparency

We trust the nearly extinct

Coffee pot

It has nothing to hide

In its infinite blackness

Dark as space

Flat as a morning pond

Before a good fishing day.



I don’t want a machine betweeen

Me and my morning coffee

Then again

I guess

there was a machine

behind the drip coffee pot

But it was considerably less

Like a pony connected to a wooden wheel rather than

An automated self driving truck

I mean

In terms of manual labor

I certainly

Didn’t expect a French press

When I went to grab a hot drop

From the local gas station

Before they had these

giant robot baristas

But the old coffee machine, you know

The drip one

Had humanity in it

Not the humanity of the French press

We aren’t looking for spa treatment at a gas station

Where truckers relieve themselves

But we like a little bit of a reminder

That a man or women

Put some elbow grease into making us

The cup we are about to drink.

It is the same sort of satisfaction we get

At an Italian restaurant

When

As we eat

As we chew

We dream of its maker

For me it is a

Beautiful old couple

rolling pasta in Palermo

Amongst blooming flowers and birds on

Windowsills perched inside the top of fresh apple pie

Even though I don’t think Sicily

Has many apples for pie

Still

they get the same

Flour ripples

On the furrows of their elbows

Always easy to forget

When washing up

While the noodles begin boiling.



But back to coffee

Back to how it is So much more

machine to cup

Then pony to wooden wheel

So much so that

Machine has overtaken man

In its daily creation.

That’s the difference between

the drip coffee-making process

And whatever finger-pressing

Medium coffee

black

sixteen ounce

On a digital screen is called.



The worst is when It asks if you want cream

You don’t even get a choice as to how

Much room

You want to

Add

For cream.

Whatever your choice

yes or no

And the claw grabs your cup

And decides the amount for you

Or for the more sophisticated ones

It decides

Between a few amounts

Giving you no chance

To let your vices overcome you

During the cream pouring process

In the event you want a splash or two more

In real time

More Then you are supposed to have.



Maybe that’s the one thing the machines

Will never be able to

Take over

That extra splash or two of cream

at the end

That you put in the cup

That you didn’t formerly contemplate while ordering.

But during the pour

in that moment

You realize that

the upcoming Day

Is more than you bargained for

And so

at that last second

You can override your internal algorithm

Based on whim

Even if it is illlogical unhealthy

And the data proves that

The amount of cream you added

Is not backed up by

The data.



I know it might be anti progress

And I am pro progress

But a world where

We don’t have unlimited discretion

To add

As much

Cream

As we want

In real time

Is a world that is going backwards as much as it is

Going forwards.

-David O'Boyle