any excuse to use "let X equal..." in everyday conversation
yesterday, my coworker joel suggested mixing a white chocolate peanut butter cup in with coffee. i had just praised my vanilla powder/hershey's caramel kiss combo. anything to spice up the disgusting free coffee.

i told joel that it had to work. a hazelnut soy latte works.

let X=[nut component].
let Y=[dairy or sort of dairy-esque component]. yes, we all know that the "butter" in peanut butter isn't actually butter or dairy at all, but neither is "non dairy creamer" cream-related.

therefore, X+Y+coffee=MMM.

however, joel took issue, made some comments about dairy making the world go round, and me saying how we'd need to factor in hormone-usage in dairies in order to enjoy the coffee at it's true cost. somewhere along the line, vanilla was added in. don't get me wrong. vanilla is an integral component of my standard coffee enjoyment.

joel's updated equation:

X=nut component
Y=dairy component
C=coffee componet
V=Vanilla
chuf=cow hormone usage factor
MMM = pleasure

MMM = (X+(Y-chuf)+V)+2C

however, vanilla was a totally unscientific, last minute add-in. i mentioned it as a side regarding the fact that nut components and dairy components could still = mmm without the added coffee component. i really should have said that you could have hazelnut and warm milk and it's tasty. or drink a glass of milk after eating peanut butter. it's almost necessary! but regardless, the addition of vanilla renders our methods uncontrolled. therefore, we need to eliminate the V from our equation.

this way, the presence of enough V wouldn't eliminate CHUF. that's important. while vanilla is inherently excellent, the cows don't seem to care. we'd need a serious dairy industry reform factor (SDIRF) or possibly even a dept of agriculture overhaul factor (DoAgOF). these factors are rhetorical and immeasurable at the current time, therefore the (Y-chuf) factor can only result in the addition of a MMM depreciation value, of (-guilt) to counter the CHUF.

therefore, without V: we have

X=nut component
Y=dairy component
C=coffee component
CHUF=cow hormone usage factor
guilt=CHUF resultant
MMM=pleasure

[X+(Y-CHUF)]+2C=(MMM-guilt)

technically, dependent upon each individual's personal threshold for dairy industry-related guilt, PEANUT BUTTER CUPS HAVE TO TASTE GOOD IN COFFEE. i dare someone to try it.