The Incredible Saga of the Exploding Coffee Machine

As the title suggests, this saga is, indeed incredible.

I begin: It was 5:36 in the morning. I'm the front counter opener, which means I start all the machines, make all the coffee, prepare all the tea and lemonade and all the other little necessary front counter things that are essential before the restaurant opens at 6. We were running a little late this morning because Chris was late and we can't get into the store until he arrives, and it was Monday. That means that EVERYTHING had to be done: the lemonade dispensers need setting up, the icedream machine needs setting up, and the diet lemonade, which doesn't keep over the weekend, needs to be dumped and made fresh. On top of this, there was a new, time consuming policy regarding the creamer for the coffee and how it is to be dispensed. This is a vile, ridiculous policy which fails to replace its predecessor in efficiency or sanitation, but is much, much more of a hindrance. I cannot wait until the scheme comes crashing down to land, a twitching ball of misapplied logic, in the middle of the drive-thru floor.

To my joy, I learned that the night crew had set up the creamer dispenser on Saturday evening, and I needn't bother with it. I flew through the store, plopping my work bag down in the break room, which is less of a room and more of a nook and since it was modified to be more of a prep table, nobody takes their breaks there anyway. My bag is stuffed full between my purse, books and the clothes I would wear after my shift is over because I hate wearing any pants, especially my work pants, when I'm not working. I set up the tea maker as fast as possible, then ran and began pushing all the buttons on the computer bagging screens, the coffee machine and the security camera. This part is wonderful: if you do it properly, you can get all the buttons pushed in a couple of very graceful pirouettes. In my case, it's graceful until the very end when I stop myself by stumbling into the drive-thru window, but since nobody is around to see me, it is satisfying nonetheless.

Next on the agenda is to set up the coffee machine as fast as possible. Today, as has been mentioned, is ice cream dispenser day, which is one of the most time consuming projects because it has to be sanitized and rinsed twice, and there's usually at least one part missing which you have to crawl about on your hands and knees to find, and when you do find it you have to sanitize it, and we were already five minutes late. I am an amazing coffee setter-upper, in fact, the term coffee setter-upper was made just for me. I know this is an exercise in description, but I think that the title would make any words of foreshadowing on the subject of coffee superfluous. You all know what's coming.

But it's not coming yet. As of yet, we have one happy pot of coffee on the brew. I remember, vaguely, complaining of how the night crew seldom puts things away in the same place twice. Why I should say such a thing at that moment, I'm not sure. I don't remember there being any problem in those early, innocent moments before the Great Event, when everything was still normal, indeed, when there still was a normal. Everything was where I needed it to be, misplaced coffee and tea nozzles flew into my hands with alacrity and submitted to my every command. I was, in those few, precious moments, the master and queen of the entire front counter area. I set up the soda towers, trying to race the coffee timer and get back in time to prepare the decaf brew because this time the key to the soda towers was NOT missing. I won with thirty seconds to spare, changed out the pots and pressed the button to brew the decaf.

Now was my moment, it was time to set up the tea towers, and then I would mix a diet lemonade (something that oh, so many monday openers could not manage for themselves, but had to wait, confused and near hysterics, for the 6 am person to arrive and do it for them) after that I would tackle the ice dream machine and emerge victorious, the best Monday opener ever.

Then I heard a popping sound that made my stomach jump into my throat for comfort. I turned to see the inside vent of the coffee machine providing a fireworks display just for me, with much crackling and a few hundred little stars going out. If I hadn't been so startled, I would have enjoyed it. The logical course of action, perhaps, would have been to unplug the machine before anything terrible happened. That was how I had responded long ago when my radio, in a fit of unbridled jealousy, attempted to set fire to my favourite throw pillow as it was resting nearby from recent, indescribable exertions of gore and flying bits of fluff. To do this, though, I would have had to move the coffee machine itself, as it continued to pop and splutter and send off sparks and, now, smoke, and if I had thought of it at the time, I probably would have pretended that I hadn't. I ran to the office door, I could smell the fragrant, abrasive aroma of ozone and wafting smoke as I fled, and shouted, "Chris! The coffee machine's broken!" This is how, in a world of superiors and subordinates, you turn your problem into somebody else's problem.

Chris emerged, flustered and highly inconvenienced, since he probably has his own opening system which I had thrown into disarray. I'm very clever like that. We ran back together, I might have explained further the level of damage to the coffee machine, but the situation was too heated for me to remember now what exactly I did then. He stood for a moment looking at the coffee machine as it sat, quiet, complacent, smoking only a little and not spluttering at all. Carla, as she tried to set up the kitchen, cried out "Chris, there's smoke!"

"I know," Christ shouted back, "it's our coffee machine." To me he added, "I'll call Paul." Paul is our maintenance man; he's the brother-in-law of the general manager, but this suggestion of nepotism should not in anyway imply that he isn't quite good at his job. Sandy, one of the managers, used to be in charge of maintenance, and she was very good at putting excellent, long lasting band-aids on everything, but she and the owner never found a good way to pay her both for maintenance and for her work as a manager without the two jobs colliding messily. Chris had also been in charge of maintenance but, just like the occasion when I specifically ordered my work pants from Luke, who sincerely promised that I would never again have to make due with cruddy, used pants that didn't fit me at all, his good intentions weren't quite enough. Paul takes things apart, orders parts that cannot be put back together, salvages parts from old machines and in general makes a very large mess, cleans it all up, sets everything into working order again and is very fun to watch in the mean time. I don't know his last name, even though he told me once, and if I remembered it I would probably refer to him as Mr. (insert last name that probably begins with an "h" or maybe it was an "m" here). Everyone else at work has a last name, and it occurs to me that this deficiency should probably be addressed.

Then the machine started sparkling again, not as magnificently as when it had put on its show for me, since Chris is but a mere mortal, but still with some traces of its raw, dangerous glory. This continued for a few strained seconds, then the smoke billowed out generously, beginning to fill the air above it with a gray haze.

"Should we unplug it?" I said, remembering at last the lesson of the radio. This is how I tell managers what to do: I pretend that I'm asking.

Bravely, he reached forward and tugged the cord away from the wall.

He called Paul then and I went back to my work as much as I was able. The diet lemonade was indeed mixed, and oh, how that mixing ensued! The speed with which I assembled the necessary components for my task, measured and mixed to precision and poured into the dispenser without losing a drop! The icedream machine was not set up in time, but since it never is, the loss was not great. The loss of the coffee was a terrible blow. I had to remind Chris and also Charise, my 6 am help, that I did have at least one pot brewed, the clamouring demands of our loving breakfast guests could be sated for a little while.

Paul arrived after we opened and examined the machine. He took it away as a warning to other seditious appliances and went to fetch the spare machine we had in storage. I had never heard of this machine and I began to think that it was only a myth, or a thing that was to be formed from the smoke of a geni's bottle, and as the hours dragged on, as the last morning cop received our last possible cup of coffee, and the lady in drive-thru who was only a few minutes too late had to be sent away mourning her morning joe, I learned just how gracious our patrons are. I've hear rumours of the dreaded coffee drinker on withdrawls.

Not being a lover of the substance myself, I cannot imagine how such a fluid can be used for such a purpose as an addiction, but I remember long ago when my sister's hands would tremble from the lack of it, and my spirit faltered at the thought of all the people, normally loving and devoted to our services, who had children at home waiting for them and small, fuzzy pets whom they loved, transformed into hideous, snarling creatures of wrath and ill humour. I am happy to report that aside from that first woman, everyone remained their kind, friendly selves, and obligingly changed their order to tea or coke or something. Only that first lady showed any signs of transforming into a gorgon and one can hardly blame her. There she sat in her car, squinting with the last dregs of her dreams still on her eyelids, reaching out her hand for the bitter ambrosia that would quicken her senses and revive her into functionality (it's a wonder some of these people even get in their cars without their coffee) and found, not a warm, steaming cup of coffee perfectly seasoned and flavoured to her taste, but a refund. It's enough to tax anyone's good humour.

At last, the spare coffee pot manifested itself: not an object of myth but a real thing made of metal and wire and plastic, and also covered in a layer of grime and dust from its interim in storage. Paul Sans-lastname and Chris chatted for a bit about the epic tale of how he discovered it and was obliged to replace its fuses or some such thing. I was battling the surly peach cylinders of doom at the time and hadn't much attention to spare for other people's exploits, so I do not know the full story. What I do know is that it was a long time before the coffee machine could be made presentable. Long minutes of waiting for the water to heat up were required, and many experimental brews as the grime was slowly flushed out of the insides, much prodding and speculating, and the frail promises that we might have coffee in ten minutes or maybe half an hour were poured out before at last, we learned that we did, indeed have coffee once again.

The front counter was in working order again as we were able to fill the morning demands of our patrons. The ice dream machine was happily purring in its corner, exploiting the second law of thermodynamics to the fullest as it blew hot air at anyone who walked past (I think it times these sudden bursts of air to suit its own amusement, personally) the lemonade dispensers were creating small fountains within their plastic containers and the coke zero dispenser didn't elect to spontaneously combust until sometime later: all was right with the world.

Fin.