How a Cappuccino Machine Works

There are some things you should learn in a physics class. This is one of them

I don’t know if you have or have ever had a cappuccino machine. It’s one of those completely unnecessary luxury items that people buy just so they could say “Oh, well I have a cappuccino machine.” Nice. Very prestigious.

My dad happens to be one of these people. He buys things that will make him appear cool- music, cds, cologne, and random technological items that no one really needs, but convince themselves that they do. Like cappuccino machines.

So one day, he bought one. And we used it occasionally when we had guests and stuff. It’s quite elegant you know- serving cappuccinos in small, porcelain demitasse cups… It’s like being at a restaurant, only you don’t have to pay. Except for the nominal fee of 9 bucks that is the toll for the bridge you have to cross if you are ambitious enough to come to our house. So basically, we didn’t use it. Why should we? We had a perfectly good coffee machine.

That is, until the perfectly good coffee machine turned out to be not so perfectly good. In fact, it was a piece of crap. And now all of a sudden, a completely useless item quickly became a necessity. My dad started to drink one or two MUGS of cappuccinos a day. And people wonder why I’m so stressed out everyday. I can assure you that it has nothing to do with the fact that I live with someone who is constantly on a coffee high and feels it is his duty to humanity to yell at me at least 4 times a week whether I deserve it or not. But that’s beside the point. The point is that now I had to make cappuccinos everyday.

Yesterday happened to be an insane day. My mom was leaving for the Country Music Awards in the morning which is stressful enough as it is. But add to that the fact that I didn’t sleep and she woke up ten minutes before she had to leave. Well, you can imagine. The time bomb was activated. By the time she left, I felt like shit.

Then my dad woke up (how the hell he managed to sleep through the chaos going on outside of his door, I have no idea). He lumbered into the kitchen and asked me to make him some coffee and wake him up when it was done. Alright. Not a big deal. I’ve been making coffee since I was nine. I could do it with my eyes closed. Or so I thought.

I poured in the water, screwed on the lid real tight, ground the coffee, put it in the thing, turned the knob, and waited. And waited. It make about a quarter of the amount of water I thought I poured in. So I waited again. And waited some more. Fuck. It’s wasn’t working. I exhaled an exasperated sigh. Why am I so inattentive to what I am doing? This is what happens when I don’t sleep enough. I can’t even pour the correct amount of water into the damn machine. I reach over to unscrew the lid. How curious. “To avoid risk of injury, release pressure before unscrewing lid.” What the hell does that mean? Completely disregarding the warning, I proceeded to loosen the lid.

BOOM!! The lid shoots out of my hand, hits the ceiling, hits me on its way back down and clatters onto the floor. A jet of water explodes from the depths of the machine, also hitting the ceiling and raining down upon me. Ow.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” my dad yelled out from his bedroom.

“Nothing,” I mumble, solemnly getting a chair to mop up the dripping ceiling. Stupid dad. If he didn’t get a piece of crap coffee machine in the first lace, this would never have happened.