So we have three “bougie” coffee machines in the Camp Bondsteel chow hall. They are all broken.

“Bougie” of course is short for “Bourgeoisie” and in modern term it is meant to call out comfortable middle-class small-mindedness, or sometimes called “first world problems”. We have regular coffee dispensers and there is nothing wrong with them, but they only dispense ordinary American-style drip coffee, which is the norm in the States but I have to keep reminding myself that elsewhere in the world it is considered kind of “meh” (I think the French even refer to it as “sock water”).

It was nice being able to go to the magic fancy coffee machine and get a vanilla latte, or a cappuccino, or a French Vanilla, or even a hot chocolate. But the machines are not very robust; they run out of their pre-mixed packets quickly, the syrup congeals in the nozzle and partially clogs, sending goop spraying out, and because they are being used by 400+ soldiers from all over Europe, they just get dogged out.

But you can tell when someone important is coming to visit, because they pull out all the stops to make sure these things are clean and hosing out their caffeinated goodness on demand. Look around, because there’s someone you’re probably supposed to be saluting.