“Wonder what the count is today,” said Herb. “Sure is hot.”

We sipped simultaneously, as is our wont, and stared at our friend. “What count would that be?” asked Steve.

“The btu count, of course,” said Herb. “Those are British thermal units, you know. It’s how heat is measured.”

Leave it to Herb. There doesn’t appear to be any coffee-drinking topic that Herb can’t make completely obscure.

“I was just getting used to the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius,” our cowboy, Steve, said. 

“I always eat my Celsius with peanut butter on it,” said Doc.

“Doc made a joke!” came the coffee-counter chorus. That was unusual because Doc was considered by most of us as the chief justice of the supreme court of darn near everything because of all the initials after his name. 

Windy Wilson got up slowly and stiffly, walked over to the phone sitting on the cashier’s counter, and dialed a number. He nodded and came back to the other members of the world dilemma think tank.

“97,” he said, taking a sip, 

“97 what?”

“Degrees. Right now. Outside. According to that girl’s voice on the hotline number I called.”

“Fahrenheit?”

“Don’t know,” Windy said.

“Kelvin?”

“Kelvin who?”

“Rankine?”

“She didn’t say. Just a recordin’ on the phone, you know…”

“Number of British thermal units?”

“I don’t care how they do it in Britain,” Windy said. “Hotter right here, anyway.”

“Might be Celsius,” said Herb.

Doc looked up from the depths of his coffee, “Not without peanut butter it isn’t.”

Some onlookers just enjoy a short stack and try to figure out what we’re talking about. It could become a passion or trend or something.