mardi 29 mars 2011


What is this? you may ask.
A modernist painting?
A new Chinese board game?
No my friends, it is the Nespresso capsule wall holder at my work.
We have a Nespresso coffee machine, and for Christmas one year I bought a stainless steel foamed milk maker (which I am pretty much the only one to use, but yay! I don't care).
For Christmas the year 2009 I bought this (all the way from Strasbourg no less, as they didn’t have it for internet order and the stores in Marseille didn’t carry it) to be mounted on the wall. (which only took 5 months to actually mount and the purchase of a drill).
It has 7x7 openings for the capsules. Nespresso has about 14 different strengths, and comes out with specialty flavors around Christmas and stuff.
For those of you not in the know (you poor things you) each color corresponds to a strength, from Ristretto 10 in Black to Decaffeinato 2 in Red.
At first, we all had our names on labels, one per column of spaces. Everyone had different preferences for colors, but I made sure that they were kept neat. That is to say, symmetrical about the horizontal axis.
Examples:
3 blue and 4 brown? - from top to bottom of column - (brown blue brown blue brown blue brown)
5 blue and 2 brown? (blue brown blue blue blue brown blue)
6 blue and 1 brown? (blue blue blue brown blue blue blue)
4 blue, 2 brown, 1 red? (blue brown blue red blue brown blue)
Only 6 of one color? (capsule capsule capsule emptyspace capsule capsule capsule)
(I could go on for days, I experimented with all the different combinations. Get it?
Yeah, it kept me amused for a very long time. Hey, it made my mornings.
But then it was decided not to divide them up by name, but rather by strength (from strongest to weakest).
Rather less exciting for me, but hey, I'm adaptable.
Before I left for my studying/test/doing nothing in Colorado extravaganza, I had it very neatly arranged, each column corresponding to a color, from strongest 10 on the left to weakest 2 on the right.
When I came back, it was in total disarray. I suppose from randomly using different capsules, replacing them with others not according to my carefully-thought-out color scheme.
I patiently reordered the capsules, and make sure that the columns were kept filled up (in fact, could you please just take the capsules directly from the boxes they came in, which are on the side by the microwave, so as to not mess up my capsule tableau? thank you).

A few days later, someone DELIBERATELY MESSED UP MY PERFECTLY ORDERED NESPRESSO TABLEAU!

Can you say, pulling my chain?!
I must let it go. I must let it go.

I try not to look at it when I pass by.

Deep breaths.
I will get through this with a Zen attitude and some long meditations on how it is symbolic of the unpredictableness of life, and that not everything can be controlled.
And now? They'll just have to guess at what strength their Nespresso capsule is. Hah!

4 commentaires:

deedee a dit…

I want one of those Nespresso machines. I will probably overdose on coffee the day I actually have one...
I worked in two offices that did have one, but we didn't have that cool tableau for the capsules. We all hoarded them in our desk drawers and when we were feeling brotherly towards a co-worker, we'd "invite" them for a coffee.

Anonyme a dit…

It seems to me that you've invested way too much of yourself in that office. They obviously don't appreciate what you've done for them.
Do you have a common jar when everyone puts their coffee money?

Starman a dit…

I have a friend with compulsive disorder, he would be a basket case in a week if someone did that to him.

Mwa a dit…

Tee hee I so get that.

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