The water cooler and its cone cups

A man in a canvas jacket filled a cone cup three times in one sitting once, crushed each cup after, and stacked them in a small tower on the side table before his name was called, a structure the receptionist left standing for the rest of the afternoon out of what seemed like professional courtesy. The cooler itself holds five gallons in an inverted bottle that gurgles on its way down, a burble audible from the far side of the room whenever the level drops past its widest point, which most people who have sat here long enough can identify without looking. The cone cups, dispensed from a spring-loaded holder bolted to the side, hold roughly three ounces each, an amount calculated for thirst rather than satisfaction, and taste faintly of the paper they are made from no matter how cold the water inside. The spigot sticks slightly on the cold setting and rarely on room temperature, a discrepancy nobody has reported because nobody has thought to. Some visitors take a cup for the water. Others take one for something to hold, turning it in their hands while they wait, folding the rim flat and then round again, a fidget the cooler was never designed to provide but has apparently come to supply anyway. What it was built for and what it is used for are not, it turns out, always the same water.

Doreen Fitch