Saturday, March 31, 2007

Parental props


I hunt for my emergency supply of coffee beans at first light whilst small people squabble over who should be ‘Mario’ and who should be ‘Walugi.’ I know that if my brain doesn’t receive a caffeine hit within the next ten minutes, all will be lost.

The caterer has failed again. [translation = that would be me] A few weeks ago we were buried in coffee beans under the delusion that we had ‘run out of coffee.’ This little mind set fever, attacks me at various intervals, a little brain loop that skips the ‘you have already bought coffee / bananas / cereal’ on the previous 12 visits to the supermarket.

The garage overflows with the ‘skipped’ item, until eventually I run out of shelf space. Physical, incontrovertible evidence, of advancing senility. This seems to be the trigger that cuts the loop, enabling me to ‘stop’ buying the ‘run out of’ item. The loop has been off too long, and now the shelf is bare. Crisis! How can you get through even the start of the day without a caffeine additive? Is it possible?

During my garage search of the truly desperate, I come across chocolate coffee beans left over from the holidays. I wonder how the coffee machine would cope with them? Would it recognize them as a foreign body or would it just churn them up, grind them up and spit out an espresso hit? Can I risk adding chocolate to a machine that generates heat? Will it melt them, clog up the works, jam the whole system?

I feel it’s always best to start the day with a dangerous experiment, especially if you happen to be asleep at the time. Thank goodness I don’t have a real job.

1 comment:

Mommy Brain said...

So...did it work? I need to know! One of the best days of my life was when the Dunkin Donuts opened less than a mile from my front door! They have the best coffee, it's always ready and I can throw the cup away...could it get any better?