Jamaican Me Crazy!

What follows is the recounting of one of my favorite camping stories. It's a beauty!


It all began when Jesse realized he forgot to bring coffee on our trip last weekend. This was a problem because the Craigs arrived a day before us, so he was facing the prospect of the next morning sans coffee. A camping trip without a fresh brewed cup of joe in the morning is almost not worthy to be called a camping trip.


Well, I mentioned on Tuesday that this campground was 30 miles from the nearest town. Fortunately, there was a dilapidated country store about 10 miles down the road. It's one of those stores with a sparse selection of food on the shelves, the cups of worms are in the fridge right next to the food, and most canned goods had a thick coating of dust on top.


As Jesse entered the store, he asked the store owner if they had any coffee. She showed him to the instant coffee. That wasn't going to cut it, so he asked if they had ground coffee. Sure enough she grabbed him a few bags of the above off the shelf and took him to the register to ring it up.


Before Jesse knew it, she was taking a black marker and crossing off something on the bag. She voluntarily announced, "Don't worry about that date, I'm told it's still good." Yes, that is coffee from February of 2007! With a name like "Jamaican Me Crazy" and a strong desire for a morning brew, Jesse bought the two "not for individual sale" bags despite an expiration date of almost two and half years ago.


Morning one, he brewed up a pot. I'm sure he would agree that coffee & wine don't share the "gets better with age" adage. Morning two, he reluctantly brewed another pot and choked it down. Morning three, he gave up and took some of my coffee and in return gave me a gift of my very own bag of Jamaican Me Crazy!


Anyone want to come over for a cup?