The towering caffeine inferno
4th June, 2007

We looked at the espresso machine and then each other and shrugged. There was water in the tank, the power was on and the coffee in place. It only remained to turn the knob for the fresh, rich dark brew to stream forth. So my wife turned the knob. Nothing happened. We have a stovetop espresso maker with a screw-on base in which you put the water. Failure to screw this in with precision can cause one of two things to happen. When you lift the pot off the stove, the bottom falls off and splashes you with boiling water. Believe me when I say that this is an extremely unpleasant experience, one that will find you standing in front of the refrigerator with your arm in the freezer as you wait for the pain to subside and the tears to stop streaming down your cheeks. Alternately, as the coffee begins to percolate, your failure to screw the base on properly allows the liquid to start seeping between the top of the pot and the bottom and onto the flame of the gas stove. From experience, I know that stainless steel coffee pots get extremely hot and that you will get burned - again - if you touch them with unprotected flesh. Panicking on this morning as the gas flamed and sizzled and coffee spewed over our stovetop, I grabbed a tea towel and reached for the coffee pot. Seconds later, flames leapt towards the ceiling and the smoke detector started its manic shrieking as the tea towel, one end of which had dangled into the gas jet, ignited. I shrieked in terror and dropped the tea towel and coffee pot as one does when confronted with an inferno and the whole lot - coffee grounds, boiling water and flaming fabric - crashed to the floor and spread themselves throughout the kitchen as I gave an impromptu performance of the Dance of the Flaming Tea Towel. This involves leaping around like a man walking on broken glass while simultaneously waving his arms like an Aussie Rules umpire. I didn't bother having coffee that morning as I reasoned I had probably had sufficient stimulation for one day.    "We still have time before we go to work," I said. "Turn the knob again."    "Are you sure?" she asked.    "What can happen?" I said, so she turned the knob and the machine gurgled once and was silent. "See?" I said proudly. "It's working." Seconds later, there was a bang and her screams rent the air as something solid and metallic ricocheted off the wall, steam filled the kitchen and my face was splattered with a hot, wet sludge. As the steam cleared I looked across the kitchen to where she was standing, a look of astonishment frozen on her face. The espresso machine had exploded, spraying coffee grounds in a 180-degree arc throughout the kitchen.    "You okay?" I asked. This came out as "Arsh yous oskay," my speech temporarily impeded by coffee grounds that now covered my mouth, hair, shirt and pants.    "I think so," she said, wiping coffee out of her eyes and looking around the kitchen, the walls of which were covered in dark brown lumps from which coffee was now dribbling. Her work uniform was covered in coffee and there was no clean replacement. We tried to clean it and the walls but only made a bigger mess. "That's never happened before," she said as I dropped her off at work and she walked off smelling like a freshly brewed short black, digging a lump of coffee out of one ear as she passed through the front gates. It was a lament I have heard all my life. When I finally arrived at the office, I spent the day sitting at my desk picking lumps of coffee out of my hair, ears and eyebrows.    "What did your boss say?" I asked my wife later that evening.    "She said you were a danger to humanity and should be locked away," she replied.    "Didn't see the funny side?" I asked.    "Not that I noticed," she said. Life, at least, is never dull.

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