Something is going on inside the average office coffee cup that so far defies scientific explanation. People leave their dirty coffee cups on their desks for days. Then after running lukewarm tap water over the cup for a couple of seconds, they fill it up again and start drinking. And they never get sick.
I once saw a coffee cup literally foaming over with mold. But the owner merely wiped out the cup with tissue and resumed using the cup as if it had just come out of a steam-fired dishwasher. AND HE DIDN'T GET SICK!
I knew an editor who did not wash his coffee cup for 21 years. It had this black tar junk coating the bottom of the cup like a lacquer bowl. He was convinced that the accumulation of coffee residue provided some important chemical reaction that killed any germs. Once, after taking a sip of coffee, I noticed he had a few mold spores clinging to his lip. And he didn't get sick.
What is the answer to this Coffee Cup Conundrum? Is it the shape of the coffee cup? Is there some scientifically provable reaction between coffee, the cup and the air?
I know that this phenomenon is not limited to newsrooms. I've been in all kinds of offices and have seen filthy, festering, caffeine-stained coffee cups. Some of the cups actually are kept on little hot plates so that the coffee remnants are rendered to dense, basic atomic elements.
The weird thing is that the people who use these putrid cups appear to have a hypersensitivity to every other substance in the atmosphere. You light up a cigarette around them, and they cough like you had just stuffed them into a gas chamber. If their sandwich somehow touches the desk top, they throw it away as if it is too contaminated to eat. If they type for more than three minutes, they complain of carpal tunnel syndrome. If the fan blows on them, they act like they are coming down with pneumonia. If the blinds are open just a bit too wide, they complain that the glare on their computer screens is giving them cataracts.
BUT they think nothing of leaving their coffee cup sitting unclean and uncovered on their desk overnight. They seem unbothered by the accumulation of dust on the cup rim or the fact that small multilegged creatures tromped through the cup during the night. When they come in the next day, they simply dump the crusty bits out of their scuzzy old coffee cup, fill it up with new coffee and then chug it. (And they don't get sick!)
There is so little known about this phenomenon. It is known that it is only limited to coffee and coffee cups or mugs. Tea drinkers are forced to keep their cups clean. Hot chocolate drinkers would never think of leaving chocolate residue in their mugs and then reusing them without cleaning them. And those office weirdos who actually buy bottled water from the office vendor ... well, let's not even talk about those guys.
Scientists need to crack this riddle. There is something going on here that could benefit all humanity.
If we could only find out why bacteria apparently cannot live in the average office coffee cup, we may be able to end the suffering of millions of people around the world. Cholera could become a thing of the past. People in Third World countries, forced to ingest muddy water infested with microorganisms, might find their lives saved if they simply consume the filthy water from office coffee cups with a dash of industrial strength java from the typical five gallon office coffee urn. A Coffee Cup Vaccine may be the cure for AIDS.
Forget the rats and the monkeys, fellas. The office coffee room should be your next laboratory.
