The Question of '05

Yesterday I was at a local coffee shop and after having ordered my cup of coffee, I walked over to the little "fixin' station," you know, the counter designated to the sugar, creamer, etc. I did my usual thing - a bit of sugar, a splash of cream - and something for the first time struck me as very odd. There on the shelf was a glass counter next to sugar. The contents of this container looked almost identical to the sugar - grainy, powdery like white stuff. Only the label on this container read "Creamer." And this got me thinking.

How can powder be creamer? Shouldn't creamer, by definition, be...you know...creamy? I don't understand how you put powder in your coffee and you get creaminess in the end. This makes no sense to me. Powder is one thing. Cream is quite another.

So there I stood in deep reflection at the fixin' station, pondering the metaphysical possibility of powder-based cream. And it reminded me of the astronauts and the freeze-dried, vacuum-sealed, stiff blocks of cardboard they would eat that was supposed to "ice cream." You remember this? Colorful cardboard can't be ice cream. And in the same way, white powder that dissolves in hot coffee can't be creamy. Call me crazy, but that is what I think.