The Short Cup

We give our daughters our Aldi pod coffee machine when they leave home. “We’ll treat ourselves to a new one,” we say, not realising there isn’t a single Aldi coffee machine for sale in the whole of Australia (as far as we’re aware). All stores are waiting for a new shipment from Germany.

We wait and wait and wait, but no coffee machines appear in our local Aldi store. Getting impatient, my husband Andy says, “Let’s forget about the Aldi coffee machine and buy a different brand. I’ll do some research.”

An hour or so goes by before I receive a phone message with a link: This one has lots of 5-star reviews. It’s highly recommended. I place an order, and then we wait.

The postal delivery woman arrives with a box. As she hands it to me, I exclaim, “It’s our coffee machine!”

I slice through the packing tape with a knife, pull back the flaps, and raise the machine from the box. My eyebrows rise, too.

Later, when Andy arrives home from work, he slips a pod into the new machine and tries to slip a cup under the spout. It won’t fit. He frowns. “This machine is much smaller than I expected.”

“It’ll be fine,” I reply. “We just need to use shorter cups.”

A few days later, the delivery woman is back. “Hi, Sue!” she says, handing me another box. As I scratch my signature on her receipt device with my fingernail, she asks, “How’s your coffee machine?”

“Well, it was much smaller than we anticipated. If we were living in a caravan, it would be perfect because it doesn’t take up much bench space. But despite its size, it makes excellent coffee. I think we’ll keep it.”

I tell Andy about this conversation, and he says, “She remembered she delivered a coffee machine the other day?”

“Oh yes, I’m good friends with the delivery lady.” I suppose that’s because I see her frequently. I’m always ordering things.

Andy forgets to ask me what was in the new parcel. I don’t tell him about the tripod with the magnetic mount that will grip my phone tightly when I next make a video. There’s only one problem with my new purchase: I might not need it. I no longer feel like vlogging.

But I do feel like a cup of freshly brewed coffee. I fill the water reservoir and slip a pod into the machine before pressing the button. Rich, dark coffee streams into my cup. My short cup, of course.

In case you’re wondering: we bought a De’Longhi Nespresso Essenza Mini EN85W.SOLO, Automatic Coffee Maker. I suppose, from the description, we should have expected a small machine!

Image: a tall dog with some short cups.