A friend of mine got transferred to Pune recently. Having met after a long time, we decided to chat over coffee and went over to the coffee-machine. Since I tend to have coffee a number of times in a day, I generally take half-a-cup, to restrict my caffeine intake. My friend also pressed the button marked 'H' on the vending machine and took his half-cup of coffee, probably for similar reasons.
We used to meet regularly, and that was when I discovered something queer about his behaviour - He would always take half a cup but at the same time remark on how little coffee he got. I suppose some people are given to complaining, so I never took him seriously. But in all other respects, he was pretty ok and so we got along well.
As we frequented the coffee machine more often, he made a slight change in his habits. He would now press 'H' twice and take his cup-full of coffee. The first time he did that, he smiled back at me with a sense of achievement. I couldn't understand what that smile meant, but since everyone is eccentric in their own way, I decided against bothering him by questioning his behaviour.
Then one day, I felt like having a full cup of coffee and so instead of pressing 'H', I pressed 'F'. As the cup filled to its brim, my friend stared at it in amazement. This time I couldn't stand it any longer and had to ask, "What happened? Anything wrong?". He looked up at me and asked back "Does that 'F' stand for 'FULL'?". I wasn't sure if that was some kind of a trick question and after pausing for a few seconds said "Yes". With a sheepish grin, he replied back "Oh… I thought 'H' meant 'HOT COFFEE' !"
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