Sabotage? Hardly.

A catastrophe was narrowly averted at Bank of No Forks today. Honestly, a catastrophe.

I was the first person in the office today and as soon as I got my computer going I went in to start the coffee. The ladies of Bank of No Forks take our coffee very, very seriously. We have recipes – two packages of coffee then a layer of mocha is a

Panda Coffee! OMG – yes please. Borrowed from PandaCoffee @ Tumbler

favorite. We have a collection of flavored creams and syrups and we keep half and half in the fridge. We’ve even been known to have whipped cream just for the fun of it.

Our security guard offered to make the coffee one morning and I sternly told him to just get away from the machine cause he was gonna get it wrong. Look – I’m a late comer to the coffee addiction but I don’t take the making of it lightly. Coffee is a very serious matter.

So imagine my horror this morning when I went in there and the coffee maker wasn’t cooperating. Oh the horror!

I started at its misbehaving lights blinking randomly but failing to arrive at the ready position.

I heard the inner office door open and I yelled out to whomever it was, “There’s a catastrophe! The coffee isn’t working.”

Of course, it was the one person in our office who doesn’t care about coffee. She thought I said copier so she started fiddling with that machine instead.

“It works fine,” she said when she came into the kitchen.

I looked away from the travesty blinking away with teasing menace on the counter. “What are you talking about? No it’s not.”

“Yeah, I just made like 10 copies and it went fine.”

“No! Coffee. Coffee. THE COFFEE MAKER ISN’T WORKING!” I might have been a bit dramatic at that point, but I wanted to make sure she understood the magnitude of what was going on.

“Oh.” She shrugged and left me to my ministrations – pushing buttons and unplugging things.

Another officemate entered and I explained the situation as calmly as I could. She understood the urgency so she joined me in front of the machine. She pushed a few buttons, too. Nothing. Pretty soon there were five of us gathered around, staring at it, touching it in random places. We talked nicely to the coffee maker. We threatened it. One of us may have cried a little. We discussed holding a seance. One of the Catholics in the office tried to get an old priest and a young priest on the phone for an exorcism.

Don’t fret – eventually everything came out OK. We were able to call off the emergency Starbucks run. The receptionist – the Queen of the World – turned on the hot water and VOILA! Beautiful things happened. Who the hell would have ever thought to check under the sink.