my pink toes

from Essential Espresso

I brought Lazarus IV up to my parents' beach house for the week, so that I could make espresso for all without indulging in the time-consuming and expensive habit of driving into town for my daily jolt.

After my dad's second doppio (with some awesome crema), he struck up a conversation with me about my machine. I told him that I was on my 4th one (thanks, Shona!) and was saving for my dream machine. I also added a lot of blah-blah-brass-boiler-and-grouphead-and-holding-the-steam-pressure-and-
Italian-construction-blah-blah (he reads Tom Clancy, so I figured he liked ODing on technical details). He asked how much I had saved, and I told him I had $220 banked toward this dreamy purchase (including $125 I earned doing market research with HOMEWORK). He then wrote me a check for the balance of what I needed and encouraged me to go order it. Um, OK. Thanks, Dad!

The price had gone up $65 just in the two months I've been saving, but since the old price was still on one place on their website, the gracious folks at Essential Espresso gave it to me for $840.

That was a totally unexpected bonus (it reminded me a bit of the time I saved $40 toward a $100 boom box in junior high that Dad paid the balance of). I'm eager to get my new machine! Here's to some espresso bellisimo!