The physics of Tim Horton’s

I stand in perpetual amazement at the Tim Horton’s culture that includes a belief that some materials can be packaged and parsed in ways I never learned in my physics course in high school.  First, there’s the whole litre-of-milk-in-a-plastic-bag thing.  Who came up with this concept and why doesn’t it burst on the shelf?  What kind of scissors cleaning has to happen to keep the milk that has to get clipped when the bag’s corner gets snipped from souring into a stinky mess o’ germs?

The whole cant of “triple triple” and “double triple” makes little sense becasue the dairy and sugar portions references aren’t measured or prepackaged.  Is your single my double (thanks, I drink it black, anyway!)? But then when I ehar folks ask for “half a cream” I ahve to wonder if half of a glug is a gl- or -ug?

But I’m the only one in line wondering.  Except I’m not in line because there’s that other thing they do at Tim Horton’s: they see around corners and have your correctlymeasured mixture (my case, non-mixture) just getting lidded as you slide up to hand over the money.

So, precision of vision, approximation of pour.  It’s a different physical world north of the border at coffe break time.