A little morning drama

It's 6:47. The alarm clock has just given up and turned itself off. I decide: today is the day I make THE perfect coffee with milk and sugar. Not just any good. No. Michelangelo-with-an-espresso-machine-good.

I open the bean pot. There are three beans left. Three. As if the bean pot has adopted lonely beans that no one else wanted. I look at them and say out loud: "You're going to make history today. Or I'll kill you in the grinder. Your choice." They're arrogantly silent. Typical specialty single-origin Guatemala.

I pour milk into the pot. Too much. Of course. I insert the steam wand. The machine starts screeching as if I've put a cat in a blender. The milk swells like an influencer's ego after one like. And then… boom. Milk tsunami. Straight up. Straight through the ceiling. Warm milk is now dripping from the recessed lights. My kitchen has a new rain mode.

I look up and mumble, "Okay universe, I get it. You hate me. But I'm going to have coffee anyway."

This time I'm going for "three sugar cubes, because I deserve it." I carefully drop them into the espresso. They float. I stir. They stay afloat. I stir harder. One sugar cube shoots out of the cup like a cannonball, ricochets off the refrigerator door, through the microwave, and lands right in my left sock. Warm sugar-water sock. Sexy.

I try to make the milk foam. I want a nice rosetta. What I get is some kind of failed pen*s drawing someone did in MS Paint in four seconds. I look at it and say to myself, "Grok... this isn't latte art. This is a cry for help."

Finally, I have something that vaguely resembles coffee:

- A dreg of espresso that tastes like burnt heap

- Milk that's half-frothed, half-separated (the milk is now officially in a state of separation with itself)

- Two and a half sugar cubes that still refuse to dissolve on principle

I take a sip. It tastes of disappointment, a warm sock, and a hint of childish stubbornness.

And yet… I still raise the cup to my lips and solemnly say:

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is why people drink coffee in the morning. Not because it's delicious. But because it proves that, even when all else fails, you can survive the chaos… and then make another cup."

I immediately pour number two. Because if you've already become a sulking mess for one decent cup… you might as well just keep pushing through the whole morning until you look like an espresso-addicted raccoon with a sugar allergy.