[tinapbeana]

ooooh, i like that!! i got one as an email forward about coffee and life about a year ago:

a woman was visiting her mother, lamenting about the difficult times that had befallen her. her mother smiled, and asked her if she would help her in the kitchen. the mother placed a pot of water on the stove and brought it to a boil. then, she went to the fridge and got out an egg and a carrot. from the cupboard, she pulled out the coffee.

"What happens," the mother asked her daughter "when I put the egg in the boiling water?", dropping the egg in as she spoke.

"The runny middle gets cooked and hardens" the daughter replied.

"What happens when I put the carrot in?" askes the mother, dropping the carrot it.

"Well, it starts off hard, but gets soft and mushy when it cooks. What's this got to do with my problems, mom?"

the mother smiles and says "What about coffee? What happens when I put coffee in water?"

the daughter looks bewildered. "It just makes coffee. I don't understand!"

"The boiling water are your troubles, my dear. An egg, hard out the outside and all soft and runny on the inside, changes when exposed to hot water. It hardens."

"In contrast, the carrot starts out rigid and unyielding. But when faced with hot water, it quickly softens and turns to mush"

"But coffee, well, coffee doesn't change when it's put into hot water. You see, the water doesn't change the coffee: the coffee changes the water"

So the question is, when you're in hot water, are you an egg, a carrot, or coffee?