Coffee… A Universal Increment of Measure

I realized the other day that I measure things in increments of coffee. Okay… what? No, really. Hear me out…

I passed a smoker on the way into the library. My mind strayed, as it often does, and I found myself wondering how much a pack of cigarettes costs (I am not, nor have I ever been, a smoker… so I consider myself somewhat out of the loop when it comes to cigarette information). When I reached my desk of graduate superiority, I asked my undergraduate underlings how much a pack of cigarettes costs. No one smokes more than an undergrad… duh! Anyway, the resounding answer was “about five bucks” followed by a disgruntled “but you can’t buy smokes anywhere on campus.” My brain took the monetary unit, five bucks, performed a rapid calculation and immediately told my mouth to spit out the following reply: “Okay… so a pack of cigarettes costs three small coffees.”

It took my brain no time to translate $5 into three small coffees. And interestingly enough, three small coffees makes more sense to me than $5. Hmm… then it occurred to me that this phenomenon goes deeper than just monetary calculations. I also measure volume in coffee… which might be a little more obvious (i.e. this bucket can hold six large coffees… and no, I am not often confronted with bucket volume issues. It’s just an example). But get this, my brain measures time in coffee too:

“Sam, how long is it going to take you to finish that paper?”

“Oh, I don’t know… about two cups of coffee.”

Is that normal? Am I okay? Should I be worried? Well, regardless, I should end this post. This cup of iced coffee is down to its dregs and the coffee shop vultures have been eyeballing this table for about one and a half cups now. Geez… this place sure gets crowded at 4 cups o’clock…