Warming the Pipes

Coffee is the staple of many people’s mornings, but how do you enjoy your cup of joe when the pipes freeze?

Illustration of a favorite drip coffee maker filled with coffee grounds // Illustration by Jake Isom

by Jake Isom

My eyes meet mounds of unshoveled snow blanketing the driveway of my Bellingham house. My sister McKenzie and I trudge through the Arctic tundra toward the front door after our four-and-a-half-hour drive from Eastern Washington to Bellingham. With bladders full and energy levels dropping, we enter the house to use the bathroom and make some coffee.

As the snow-frosted red door swings open, my sister and I are greeted with a frigid reality: The house is without heat like a vampire in Milwaukee.

My sister races toward the bathroom. I drag my luggage to my room. I advert my eyes as I pass the thermostat. I am not ready to face the truth.

Upon hoisting my bag onto my bed, it was as though Sherlock Holmes whispers clues into my ear regarding the severity of the situation. An audible ‘thud’ echoes as I plop my suitcase onto my bed. The foam in my mattress is reminiscent of Salisbury steak from a TV dinner at the supermarket: frozen solid.

I leap toward the thermostat that I had so desperately avoided, but my sister stops me.

“Jake, the toilet didn’t flush and your sink wouldn’t turn on either,” McKenzie says. “The faucet handle wouldn’t even turn.”

My heart is the Titanic, fearing the iceberg I am soon to face.

“This can’t be good,” I think to myself.

A disheartening phone call with the landlord ensues and the realization quickly comes. The heat in the house had been turned off when no one was home for the holidays and the pipes had become ice. We would be without water for the foreseeable future.

“How are you going to use the bathroom or shower, Jake?” McKenzie asks.

“How am I going to make coffee?” I mutter to myself.

I retrieve my now chilled phone off of the rickety kitchen table to call my roommate, business partner and best friend, Stephen Smith. Stephen is my rock. Our tradition of making coffee together is as frequent as the morning sun beaming through the kitchen window.

Every cup is met with lively conversation, taste reviews and motivation for the day. Even without coffee in the morning, Stephen continues to be an energizing force of creativity and inspiration for me. As Stephen and I lift our mugs of coffee, we uplift each other.

Two coffee mugs poised next to each other atop a red wooden banister. The mug on the left belongs to Stephen Smith and the mug on the left is Jake Isom’s // Photo by Jake Isom

“Being able to share that moment in the mornings is a nice way to touch in and think about the day,” Stephen says. “It’s just a fun ‘almost-hobby’ to have and to share where we can explore the flavors and methods involved in the coffee world, but also improve our day by starting it off together.”

After hearing the tick of the clock for hours, the sound of ice cracking beneath halting tires emerges from outside. In walks the gang with hefty jugs of water and a collection of specialty coffee beans in a prestigious plastic baggie. A steel anvil is lifted from my shoulders when Stephen, his siblings and his friend arrive.

“We brought two five-gallon jugs of water and immediately packed a Ziploc bag of ground coffee so we would be able to make it,” Nathan, Stephen’s brother, says.

A similar wave of gratitude washes over me when Stephen’s friend, Coby, a coffee connoisseur, begins to explain the beautiful coffee beans that had been roasted in Central Asia.

Over this past summer, Coby was able to visit his parents who live in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. There, he was able to get a better sense of the local coffee scene while also getting familiar with different varieties of coffee beans.

“I wanted to bring back beans to America to brew with and the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe caught my eye in one of the shops I was in,” Coby says.

Before testing the waters of making coffee without any, the crew receives a tour of the Arctic tundra that we called home at the moment. As we’re in the bathroom, Stephen and Nathan lift the lid to the tank of the icy porcelain, only to be met with a hunk of ice.

Frozen water in the tank of a toilet in Bellingham, WA on Dec. 27, 2021. One of the first signs that something is wrong with the pipes in the house // Photo courtesy of Coby Young.

The remainder of the night consists of sharing stories around a dimly lit table and referring to the backyard as “the bathroom.” Steam begins to billow as the Smith boys impersonate a locomotive making evening coffee.

“In any disaster event, there is a moment when you pause and think ‘This’ll be a story to tell one day,’ I had that thought while popping a squat and staring into the neighbor’s yard in the middle of the night,” Audrey, Stephen’s sister, says.

Illustration of a kettle with steam emerging from its spout and lid. This is the Kettle that boils the water for coffee every morning // Illustration by Jake Isom

After a long, chilling day it was time for everyone to retire to bed. The crew would be rising with the sun to make it to Mount Baker the next morning. Once they left, I wouldn’t see Stephen until after the New Year.

The following days purvey brews full of love, chilled gratitude and responding to nature when she calls. Though the pipes in our house were frozen, the fire of tradition continues to warm our hearts in the frigid winter air.