I grudgingly hauled myself out of bed. At the best of times I
could never be described as a 'morning person'. I rubbed my eyes, and tried to
force myself to wake up. How some people managed to hop out of bed full of
energy and ready for the day was beyond my comprehension.
I. Need. Coffee.
It was September, allegedly spring had
arrived, but the weather had turned cold and icy. There was an unpleasant
chill in the air, and so I pulled on my gown and pushed my feet into my worn
grey slippers. I padded downstairs, my slippers echoing their customary
‘sloof-sloof-sloof’, alerting His Highness the Cat that there was life in the
house. Wasting no time, he took up his usual position at the glass door that
lead to the garden.
‘You can wait’, I informed him, ignoring
his silent demand to open the door. Instead, I made a beeline for the coffee
machine.
Our current brewing device was a rather
intimidating silver monster. It took up most of the space on the white-grey
granite counter-top to the right of the kitchen stove. This was the latest
in a number of coffee machines that Gerhard and I had owned over the nine years
that we’d lived together.
I opened the dark-wood cupboard door
that housed our mug collection, grabbed one of the white cups and positioned it
under the machine’s spout. I stabbed at the ‘long black coffee' button, eagerly
anticipating my caffeine fix of the day.
Gerhard and I both loved
coffee, which meant that any machine in our home needed to be able to
handle high traffic volumes and was expected to perform reliably. Our previous valiant
brewing device had to be laid to rest early in February 2020. Shortly after
bidding it farewell, we welcomed the
current, more robust, machine to the household.
As I waited for it to warm up,
I smiled a little to myself - I couldn’t remember life B.C. (Before Coffee). I
know there are people out there who somehow manage to ‘adult’ without coffee, I
was certainly not one of them. I’ll also freely admit that I had become a bit
of a coffee snob over the years. Gone were the days when I had ‘instant’ coffee
in the pantry. We now had an entire shelf dedicated to our inventory of coffee
beans. The stronger, the better!
The salesperson had enthusiastically
marketed the advantages of what would become our new machine for, inter
alia, its ability to brew perfect Espressos, Lungos, Americanos and
Cappuccinos (my favourite). What she had failed to warn me of, was that this
particular appliance was like a small baby. To my dismay, I soon learnt that it
was demanding, and had needs – which it usually made known at the most
inconvenient times. Initially, I had the best of intentions (as one does), and
promised myself that I would do the necessary (such as filling the beans)
before retiring for bed. Of course, my objectives were
short-lived – it became a situation of ‘knit one, slip one’, sometimes I
remembered, more often than not I forgot...
The blasted thing had a ‘not so silent’ voice, and was very clear
in terms of what it needed and when. It was annoyingly inflexible about its
demands, requiring them to be addressed with immediate effect – I could only
aspire to being quite so clear about my own requirements. Furthermore, I seemed
never to be in the correct frame of mind to address the appliance’s desires -
that particular morning was no exception.
The machine had still not magically
filled my cup, lost in thought, I pressed the brew button again (perhaps I
hadn’t been clear enough the first time?). Nothing happened.
‘FILL TANK’ flashed at me from the LED
screen.
~ September 2020
And
so started our conversation …
‘This was one of the ‘miss one’ evenings, you slipped
up’, I rebuked myself with a sigh. I extracted the water tank and refilled it
to the ‘max’ line. I reinserted it and pushed the button again. Expecting the
machine to now brew my coffee, I searched for a swab cloth in
a nearby drawer to wipe the surface. Cloth in hand, I started to clean the
area, interrupted by the LED screen flashing
‘EMPTY GROUNDS’
‘Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding
me!?’ I was starting to feel grumpy. ‘All I want is a cup of coffee, this is
not supposed to be so problematic!’ I informed the offending appliance - our
conversation had quickly deteriorated into an argument.
Obstinately, it reiterated: ‘EMPTY GROUNDS’.
‘Grrr, I’m not in the mood for this
now.’ I informed it, as I resentfully extracted the grounds container.
‘MIAUWWW!’ Spuddy added his two cents to
the discussion. He was still waiting to be let out. ‘Hang on, I’m having a crisis’, I told him and went to wash the containers in the scullery.
Having washed and dried the receptacles,
I reinserted them in the machine. ‘Let’s try this again’, I said to it and
pushed the button. I moved to open the door for Spud, trusting that by the time
I returned my mug would be filled. Just as I pulled on the handle to let the
cat out, I heard the machine emit a loud ‘WHHHIRRRRRR’ noise indicating that
the beans needed to be refilled.
I made my way back to the coffee
station. ‘Why are you being so difficult this morning?’ I enquired of the
equipment, as I removed the lid of the bean container that we kept nearby.
The bright red storage jar was empty.
‘Pfft, of course! What did you expect?’
I asked myself, and opened the pantry in search of a bag of beans. ‘It is not necessary to turn this into a hostage situation, I don’t want any trouble
from you - just give me my coffee dammit!’ I refilled the holder with beans.
‘Please? Pretty please can you just fill my mug now?’
The LED screen flashed, ‘READY, EXTRA
STRONG COFFEE’.
‘Well that’s fantastic. Really nice of
you. I’m trying again, but if you give me the middle finger this time I may
have to resort to demoting you and changing to tea! How would you like that?’ I
told it, and pressed the button for the third time.
‘mmmmm-rrrr-RRRRR-MMMMM’, the grinder
roared to life. It seemed that the threat of being traded in for a teabag had
done the trick. Finally, after what had become a very trying morning, the
spout finally dispensed coffee into the cup.
‘Ahhh, I inhaled the amazing aroma,
‘Now, that wasn’t so difficult was it?’
‘DESCALE’ was the retort on the LED
screen.
‘Well, now you just have to wait!’ I
informed it, protectively holding onto my full cup.
I added some milk and crankily made my
way to my spot at the dining room table. I had just sat down when Gerhard
appeared. ‘Good Morning!’ He trumpeted cheerfully (he was a lot more jovial in
the mornings than I was) and sat down beside me. I glared at him, ‘Nothing
‘good’ about this morning’, I responded, taking a sip of my coffee.
‘Where’s mine?’ He asked.
‘No,
I’m not going near that thing. You are on your own!’ I responded
forcefully.
‘Had a fight with the machine did we?’
He asked with a grin.
‘I’m not speaking to it!’
He stood up to make his own brew.
‘mmmmm-rrrr-RRRRR-MMMMM’, the grinder obediently roared to life at his request.
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked as he returned with a full mug, ‘seems to be
working fine?’
With a wry smile on my face, I shook my
head, and looked down at my empty mug. I needed a refill…
After I got over my irritability with having had to wrestle with
the machine, I concluded that there were lessons from most things in life. Here
is what I learned from my conversations with the coffee machine:
* Communicate clearly, and succinctly
about what needs to happen. The more insistent one is, the better
chance of a positive result. To my irritation, the machine seems to
be far more proficient at this than I would like
* The more proactive one is about dealing
with known needs, the better for the parties involved. Give
the machine the right ingredients and it delivers on its promises. Perhaps
the moral of the story here is that each situation has its own unique
ingredient requirements, one should ensure adequate inventory is supplied at
all times. This is in the interest of all parties concerned and will
help ensure a favourable outcome for all involved, failing which you run the
risk of having an argument
* The longer I have to wait for something,
the more I appreciate it when I receive it!
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment