I've been drinking coffee for over 35 years. To my knowledge, unless
you're buying one of those $4.00 iced mocha latte espresso
abominations from Starbucks, everyone expects coffee to be hot. In
fact it is HOT. The HOTTER, the better.

I don't drink coffee. Feh. So perhaps the following words are just the
mindless rant of a putz. No matter. I have experience with drinking
other hot liquids, and I know people whose taste buds are so deranged
that they believe coffee is meant to be ingested orally.

I don't know whether we differ on the specifics (of hot water) or on the
principle of expectations, so let me ask you a different question - is
there =any= beverage which is supposed to be (and expected to be) served
hot, that should not be served (or drunk) boiling hot - that is, at 211
degrees Fahrenheit (372.6 degrees in a more civilized system)? If so,
and you were served that drink in a Styrofoam cup, expecting it to be at
its proper temperature, and through some user error spilled it on your
daughter, and only =then= found out that the liquid was =so= hot that it
would boil over if it were taken up in an elevator, then, even granted
that the error in handling was yours, would you not feel that you were
mislead into handling the beverage less carefully than you would have
had you known beforehand that it wasn't just hot, it was goddamn boiling
HOT? The difference being that an error that might have caused pain and
a lesson, instead causes serious injury and perhaps blindness?

Or consider shooting a rifle with cartridges that make it kick back with
such force that it breaks your shoulder. Now, rifles are =supposed= to
kick back, anybody who shoots knows this. But these particular
cartridges (the same type you've used before) generates enough force
that the rifle breaks your shoulder and the bullet goes into the next
county, hitting an accordion player. You expected =some= kickback, but
not =that= much. You could have braced yourself better, but thought
that these cartridges were just like the others that came in the same box.

In both cases we're dealing with expectations which influence one's
actions. Sometimes the difference between reasonable expectations and
what is actually delivered are sufficient to be actionable. However, in
all cases it is easy to ridicule.

The JUDGEMENT is rendered by.... (wait for it).... a Judge.
[...] THAT is where the problem is.

I think we can all agree with that.

You think? It's much more entertaining to make fun of lawyers.

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
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