There are turning moments in life, such as realizing for the first time that visits from Tooth Fairy are nothing but your mother throwing her spare change from the floor of her car to beneath your pillow or that the Montauk Monster is nothing but the Photoshop work of some bored techie. Mike was having one of those moments.

After the honeymoon phase of his relationship with the espresso machine, things had become a bit blasé. Sometimes he didn’t feel like hanging with it or dealing with the everyday responsibilities of such a complicated but beautiful machine. In a word, their relationship had gone stale.

Then, nostalgia overtook him. He remembered their first time together: the sensual curve of the plastic, the virgin water input, the rich aroma of espresso caressing the skin in his nostrils. With the zeal of a man desperate to undo his wrongs and renew a once-in-a-lifetime union, he ran to the espresso machine and thrust it together.

In his exuberance, however, the machine was broken. He tried again and again to make it work, but it had made its last little cup of caffeinated romance. It was the day the espresso machine broke.