Stealing Coffee
Crushing my irrational fear of ordering coffee-based beverages is something which annually rolls over in my new year’s resolutions. Couldn’t be fucked this year, let’s try it next year.
But invariably, I’m left gaping at any urban cafe’s chalkboard at the sheer anxiety-enducing choices in front of me. Whatever happened to simply ordering coffee? Unfortunately, to maintain even a smidgen of social survival, it is apparent I need to master the ordering of the drink. It’s getting to the point where Adam now pokes fun at me when I order it with friends, claiming I’m showing off because I never usually drink it.
Also, I’ve learnt the hard way that you make a better impression by entering a room with the warm aroma of freshly brewed coffee trailing after you, than by closely being followed by four wafting scotch and cokes.
I admit, I’ve slowly grown confidence in ordering cappuccino, and moreso mocha (as this contains chocolate - something I’m more than familiar with and embrace wholeheartedly). I’m starting to learn a little more about the hazardous world of coffee by utilising coffee machines.
My current place of employ has a bright, shiny, inviting coffee machine which involves little more than the press of a button to provide instant caffeine relief. Unfortunately, it’s been broken for some time and I’m currently patching up some rough spots with an old friend of mine, the water cooler. This suits me - and my now near-elastic bladder - just fine.
As you may recall, before my current job I was lurking around a large dot com company for merely ten days before ditching it. One of the attractions of this particular job was a similar coffee machine, albeit one in working, steaming, bean-pounding order. After eyeing each other suspiciously from all angles at a distance, I eventually worked up the courage to approach it with caution.
Upon noticing its gleaming buttons labelled with more mysterious, threatening-sounding Italian words than a Mafia family tree, there appeared to be some vague sense of hope: I could simply let the machine teach me which drinks were what.
After overcoming a mild panic attack involving the location of the company’s collection of mugs, I warily placed a logo-embossed mug underneath the machine, pressed a random button, and braced for impact.
I’m not joking when I say I jumped when the contraption immediately hissed a dark cloud of steam into my eyes, as if a defensive reflex.
With rapture, I also noticed there were special ‘milk’ and ‘water’ buttons to aid my learning curve. Smugly satisfied with myself, I marched back to my desk trying to withhold the desire to gallantly thrust the mug above my head in celebration of my coffee achievement. I began reasoning that it was no more respectable than knowing all the moves to Paula Abdul’s ‘Opposites Attract’ video, and quietened down accordingly.
The walkway between my new friend the coffee machine and my desk was becoming rather worn as the hours passed on. Later I realised my excitement was probably not as attributable to the satisfaction of accomplishing something as it was to consuming excessive amounts of caffeine. It was when I knocked my phone off my desk to the ground purely from repetitively drumming my knees against the desk in hyperactivity that I thought I should lay off the coffee a little.
But my cafffeinated bubble was burst early next morning: upon arriving to work extra-early and deciding to play with my favourite machine some more, I decided to explore some of the more unusual-sounding drinks available to me.
‘Fill me up, baby!’ I cried as the coffee machine began emitting choking noises. This hadn’t happened before - was my poor darling coffee dispenser dying?
Concerned, I peered into the cup in front of me. It resembled a sample of semen.
Looking around nervously, I wondered if I’d pressed something which I wasn’t supposed to. There was no way I could back out of this now, as other employees were beginning to arrive and buzz around the kitchen area. Should I put the cup down and self-importantly march back to my desk as if nothing had happened? Ask someone for help? Try the coffee machine again a second time?
No. My undefeatable fear of being regarded as an idiot required I conduct myself in an orderly manner, and it was therefore logical that I consume my cup of hot water with a jizz (if you will) of milk. In one cringing gulp which ended with an incredibly forced, quivering grin at one of my managers who happened to be passing at the time, quickly followed by facial acrobatics which involved my mouth attempting to invert itself.
After rather stupidly consuming this, I decided to head back for a second shot at the machine, and go for the wash-down-sink option if served with water-suspended ejaculate again. An important-looking woman strode up next to me, as if on cue, once I’d pressed a button inscribed with a word which sounded like a decidedly tropical fart when spoken out loud.
‘No coffee beans,’ she knowingly rapped the plastic attachment on top of the machine.
‘Ah,’ I replied, nodding as if I knew this all along.
‘You’ll have to go and buy some more,’ she smiled.
‘He, he,’ I laughed.
‘No,’ she reiterated. ‘You actually have to go and buy some beans if you run out.’
‘What?’ I replied, dumbfounded. ‘Don’t we have supplies here or something?’
She shrugged. ‘Petty cash policy, apparently,’ she explained. ‘Something to do with what account pays for the coffee.’
‘Right,’ I replied, worrying that my coffee utopia was crashing down around me. I blinked at the kitchen, searching desperately for coffee beans. Considering that the insertion of these beans into the machine would almost certainly cause a small disaster scene if I was required to do so, I became rather nervous.
The woman began explaining that a specialist supplies store about five minutes walk away sold bagged coffee beans. ‘Can you write down what I need to ask?’ I cried desperately, clawing onto her arm.
‘No,’ she flatly refused. ‘Go get some petty cash from the front reception,’ she ordered.
‘This is insane,’ I muttered under my breath, as the coffee machine made an exploding sound and billowed steam across the kitchen. ‘Wondrous,’ I continued.
‘Well, when it’s working, it is wonderful,’ the woman agreed.
‘No, wondrous,’ I replied. ‘Note how I choose my words carefully.’
The woman eyed me suspiciously. ‘I hear sarcasm is on special at the shop as well,’ she spat.
‘No, no, it’s not like that,’ I was quick to reply. ‘It’s just that, I’m… uh, quite busy, seeing as it’s my first few days and all. I didn’t know such things were required of the last consumer of each coffee-bean bag.’
‘Well, it is strange, I agree,’ she stated. ‘I’ve lived under a communist rule and it wasn’t quite so bad as this.’ With this, she trotted off meaningfully to her desk.
Desperately searching the cupboards for coffee beans, I encountered a small jar of Nescafe coffee lurking behind some discarded dirty saucers. Retrieving my little golden find, I saw it was almost completely full of coffee goodness.
Masquerading that my left forearm was slightly more developed than my right, I slipped it into my sleeve and marched triumphantly back to my desk with mug in tow. A trip to purchase coffee beans would have resulted in my worrying myself to death, so the risk of being persecuted for petty coffee theft seemed dismissable in comparison.
Spooning out coffee with a ruler, I proudly strode back to the kitchen and added hot water and milk. Screw fancy-schmancy coffee concoctions and risks of bodily fluids inserted into my beverages: I’ll stick to petty theft and good old jars of Nescafe. Hosanna, hosanna!
Now, if only I could find a biscuit…