Heart Attack

My beloved Mr. Espresso's heart stopped beating two mornings ago, one week after celebrating our one year anniversary, one week after termination of his health care coverage. At first I wasn’t sure if he'd had a stroke since all of his mechanical functions simply froze up without warning. It was clear he'd lost the ability to pump water through his filters, and I'd begun to fear the worst...that our relationship was coming to an abrupt and untimely end. Of course, I immediately began to resuscitate him by flushing more water through his system but he remained unresponsive to me. For the past forty-eight hours he’s been sitting on my kitchen counter top, unconscious and in critical condition.

Attempting to stay calm, I fumbled through my kitchen junk drawer in the dire hope of digging up his operating manual, knowing that it was only a matter of an hour, two at most, before I'd have to walk down that loathsome path of nasty withdrawals. And I'd be all alone. Mr. Espresso understood from the beginning of our courtship that caffeine deprivation for any length of time was simply unfathomable for me. It's what I love most about him. He's so sensitive. But more than that, he loves to perform to my utmost satisfaction bright and early every morning.

With manual in hand, I began to read:

Safety Warnings...no
Installation...no
How to Make Coffee...HARDLY
Cleaning and Maintenance...no
Descaling after 200 cups...what? WHAT IS THAT?

I never had to descale Mr. Coffee. Mr. Coffee...

Oh no no, no, how could I even entertain such repugnant thoughts while my true love was sitting helpless and dysfunctional, and on the very throes of death? But I couldn't help myself. I broke down. I was frantic...desperate even. I did what any other irrational thinking female would do in my situation. I went over to Mr. Coffee without further hesitation and I turned him on.

The rest is just a blur. I realized after one cup that I had made a terrible, horrible mistake, but it was the only solution I could think of in all of my grief to pull myself together. He was weak, boring, frothless, nothing at all like Mr. Espresso. How could I have imagined that the love we once shared could ever be rekindled? Oh, my cheating heart.

Naturally, Mr. Coffee took my advances the wrong way. I tried to tell him afterwards that I just wanted to be his friend, that we were all wrong together when it came to caffeine, that I was in fact in love with another coffee maker. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was an ESE (Easy Serving Espresso). He certainly didn't take my rejection very well. How could I say these terrible things after he'd just given me every ounce of the best black gold he had? And then the words came spewing out of his pot.

"You used me."