I hammered frenziedly at the small parcel on the kitchen bench sweat dripping from my forehead. Finally I laid down the rolling pin that had been my weapon of choice and gasped for breath. Shame overwhelmed me.
"Oh how the mighty have fallen," I sighed in theatrical despair. The puffin who had been using my credit card to chop lines of Ajax stared up at me in disbelief.
"The mighty?" he asked. "A more accurate statement would be 'how the inadequate have slumped slightly'". Fine talk from a seabird addicted to cleaning products I think you'll agree. I looked around at the other plush toys but none of them seemed inclined to challenge the puffin's verdict. I returned my gaze to the object of my unusual exertions. It was a small folded package of paper towel which contained coffee beans. I had been belabouring said packet with a rolling pin. The back story is the fact that my usual cafe has recently closed. This is becoming a bit of a theme with me and I'm starting to think I'm cursed. The puffin suggested that I was the curse but he had been injecting Spray & Wipe into his eyeballs at the time so I'm disinclined to accept that as the final word on the subject. What the sudden absence of a cafe means is that I have run out of the ground coffee that I usually use with my plunger to provide the caffeine that helps me get through the day and, let's be honest, night.
In desperation I had sallied into another cafe and upon learning that their coffee was suitable for plungers had bought a bag. It was only when I got home that I realised I had acquired a bag of coffee beans rather than the plunger friendly powder I had hoped for. In what I thought was a fit of inspiration I started hammering the beans with a rolling pin. Technically I suppose it was a fit of inspiration. At least my plush toys thought I was having a fit. The plague doctor helpfully offered me leeches but I'm not sure whether that was a treatment suggestion or a meal replacement.
Now I stare at the fruits of my labours. The coffee beans are indeed, if not ground then at least definitely broken. I hammered away some more while the puffin rolled in Ajax and gurgled to itself. Eventually the combined efforts of the other plush toys pulled my frenzied body away from the kitchen bench and prised the rolling pin from my palsied hand. It was a mark of my desperation that I sought reassurance from them.
"It doesn't look too bad does it?"
"The psychedelic shark looked at the coffee coloured detritus littering the kitchen bench.
"I'm not sure if bad is exactly the word I would use."
"Despite all the evidence to the contrary I took that as encouragement and scooped up shards of mutilated coffee and dropped them into the plunger, adding the hot water I always have on standby. The puffin interrupted its Ajax orgy for a second.
"I just want you to remember this moment the next time you catch me licking detergent from the inside of the washing machine."
"Oh shut up," I muttered bringing what, by a great stretch of the imagination, could more or less be described as a cup of coffee to my lips. The results were pretty much what you might expect. I still drank it, of course I did, but bitter tears rolled down my cheeks as I did so. When I had finished the puffin looked up again.
"You know if you take the coffee beans back to the cafe they'll probably grind them for you." I stared back at him unable to speak. "And thus the inadequate slumps a little more."
I am really starting to hate that puffin.
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