Dear Mrs Fields,

You make pretty decent coffee. It's a reasonable temperature too, which is nice. (Though I do understand that this is one of the most hotly (hah, pardon me) debated issues in coffee-making - and as such, coffee-temperature-preference is possibly the second-most important personality issue in Melbourne, right after "which footy team do you support?")

I like your sippy-cup-lids as well. That sounds fatuous, but it's important to me. The lids really fasten firmly to the cup, which is good for a girl who's managed to pour her coffee into her lap on numerous occasions. The sippy bit is nice and accessible, not constricting my vitally important flow of coffee. All in all, a good sippy-cup.

I think I'm a little addicted to sippy-cups. I seem to have formed a subconscious dependence. I find myself saying "...to go" on the end of my orders, even when I'm not actually intending to go anywhere myself. (Of course, I then have to leave, because having expressed the intention, I am somewhat bound to it, wandering the streets like a vagrant. But this is Melbourne, so tramping sullenly down the footpaths clutching a coffee-cup is practically a city-wide performance art.)

Put simply, the sippy-cup-lid just makes my coffee-drinking experience easier. The aforementioned incidences of lap-pouring notwithstanding, it means I don't have to think about the whole drinking thing, which is good, because especially before the first coffee of the day, I'm frequently not very good at the whole thinking business, especially the thinking about one thing while trying to do another, and since I'm usually either in class or at work while consuming said coffee, undivided attention on the drinking process really isn't an option. This inattention and the limiting nature of sippy-lids leads to the whole thing being more of a swig than a drinking, but there are always casualties.

The other benefit of the sippy-cup is the way in which it conceals the remaining coffee-levels. One can always see, with a coffee cup (or, heaven forfend, a glass - which is two reasons to give up drinking lattes) just how much coffee is left unto us, but with a sippy-cup, it is all a mystery. This leads to Schrodinger's Coffee, a situation in which there is always more coffee in there than you thought there was. Or maybe this is just me and some magical property of my coffee cups that makes them Tardis-like, always continuing to provide coffee so long as I keep tipping them expectantly up to my mouth. The situation ceases when you lift the lid in amazement to check - something one can never resist forever.

The only thing that perplexes me about sippy-cups is how I can't seem to get the angle of drinking correct with my left hand. Who would've thought it could be so difficult?

It was as I was trying to rectify this situation, jiggling with my left hand and my chin tilted indecorously skywards, that I saw a half-familiar person out of my peripheral vision. Someone from college days, and feeling genial as I was (on the pleasant vibes of good coffee and sippy-cup use), I half-turned, ready to actually say hello, even though I'd never liked him much at college.

As I turned, even before I got a proper look at him, I realised it couldn't be him. That guy is dead.

But up until then, the coffee had been good.

Regards,
Dee