Author’s note: if I were someone who had a better idea of how poetry works, I’d be writing a poem to the Room 246 Keurig. As it stands, I am not someone who understands poetry when reading it, let alone writing it, so Keurig 246 will have to settle for a letter instead. 

 

Dear Keurig 246, 

 

Where to even begin? 

 

As someone who has only ever employed you for your gifts once, it seems fitting that it was for a cup of French Vanilla coffee. There’s French right in the name, and that’s the language of love, and sweet things, and even though that cup of coffee certainly wasn’t sweet, that’s more on me than it is on you, Keurig 246. Seriously, that one’s on me for forgetting that these coffee-pod-situation-things didn’t come with a whole cream-and-sugar setting. 

 

Did I get off to a rocky start with the cup of coffee you presented me with, Keurig 246? Absolutely. Upon being presented with said cup of coffee, what followed was a phase of “courtship” in which I intermittently alternated between blowing on the coffee, taking a sip, realizing it was way too hot, blowing on the coffee some more, and realizing it was way too bitter. This cycle proceeded to repeat for the next fifteen minutes, much to the bemusement of my tablemates (peep one Willow Nagai), who seemed to take delight in my child-like expressions of “mild” disgust. 

 

Mild may be understating it a bit, for I came to the realization very early on in life that I don’t really enjoy bitter things. 

 

What followed this first period of first impressions between my French Vanilla coffee and I – and no, this most certainly does not count as a meet cute – was an admittedly dark period in my life in which I debated just saying “screw it” and dumping the entire cup of coffee down the drain once class was over. 

 

Still, we persisted. By the time I had snapped out of my haze of I’m pouring this bitter monstrosity down the nearest sink drain ASAP, Miss French Vanilla had gone from I’m burning your taste buds off hot to I’m pleasantly and maybe still a bit borderline uncomfortably hot. At that point, I didn’t have much of a reason to be blowing on the coffee so much, and I may or may not have minorly blanked out for about five minutes and returned to awareness to an empty coffee cup whose contents I had apparently chugged. 

 

Needless to say, that was enough to get me through the remainder of my rather gray Monday. So thank you, Keurig 246, for giving me my first full encounter with unfiltered coffee. 

 

I don’t think that’s the entire reason I’m writing you a love letter. 

 

I’m writing you a love letter for the strange, sometimes eyebrow-raise-inducing noises you make. I’m writing a love letter for the frankly, quite questionable sputtering that is customary from you as you let us know that you’re hard at work. I’m writing you a love letter for the smell of coffee that permeates my corner of Room 246, that screams I’m doing my best! as you try to give us a little extra something when we’re hard at work. I’m writing you a love letter for all the senior souls you’ve brought back from the brink of zombification with bitter, dark potions of ground up bean water. 

 

I’m writing you a love letter for the people you summon to my corner of Room 246 with your magical, coffee- and tea-making ways. Legend says that you also make hot chocolate, and that there once existed peppermint hot chocolate, but I have perused your baskets and to me, this is still an urban legend of Room 246 (and yes, this is to call out one Vaughn Bealis for giving me hope that the peppermint hot chocolate pods still existed, you fiend). 

 

I’m writing you a love letter for, quite frankly, carrying the entirety of room 246’s class of ‘22 on your back. I’m writing you a love letter for giving us the option of 8 oz, 10 oz, and even 12 oz of hot, caffeinated water, even if this feels mildly enabling to people like myself that regularly get three hours of sleep. 

 

And I’m writing you a love letter as I worry that you may be reaching the end of your tenure – baskets empty, pods used up, all the water in your storage finally boiled. 

 

With love, 

Zea