Medium Coffee, Extra/Extra

As a junior at Science Leadership Academy, me and a few other students were selected to participate in a world-renowned science fair. The winner, would become rich and famous beyond their wildest dreams. And I knew exactly how I was going to win.

The first week of January has just dawned upon us, and I was once again by myself working in my kitchen. Like any other morning, I ordered a cup of coffee from the automatic coffee maker. “Medium extra/extra, on the way!” it replied with a robotic voice, and I began the day's work on the project I was sure would win the science fair. It was an amazing machine that was capable of switching the minds of any two beings into each other's bodies.

     As the coffee maker began pouring my coffee into a styrofoam cup, I was nearing the end of the project’s completion. So I went and got the mouse and and the canary, I had previously bought from the pet store, and prepared the machine for its first testing. Once ready, I gazed at the perplex items spinning and whizzing in front of me, holding the coffee I was too excited to drink, and prepared the switching process. To my relief, the machine whirred and hummed into action, my grin stretching from ear to ear.

     The machine rumbled, and began to glow a vibrant yellow in front of its targets. The bird, though, startled by the sounds, began to flutter around. The bird flew into the air, flinging itself onto the machine. I watched in horror as the laser-like gun swung towards me. And with a terrible trippy whirl of colors, I felt my body fall to the floor and everything go black.

     When I awoke, what I assume to be a few minutes later, I first noticed that I was almost 5 feet shorter. Then to my horror, realized that I also had no arms... nor legs. Then finally it dawned to me, that I was no longer myself... but my automatic coffee maker. Instantly, I knew something horrible happened. But I knew how my object worked, and it could certainly be reversed with the switch of a toggle.

     So instantly I began to set up a rescue plan. I began to teach myself how my new body worked. The boiler, the cream and sugar inserter, the speaker and the pouring spout. Through the device's motion-sensing detector which I could use as an eye, I could see my cell phone sitting on the counter. Aiming carefully, I began shooting packets of sugar at it. Obviously, I like to keep a lot of sugar inside, so I was quite in luck. Yet as more and more bounced pathetically off the phone, I began to feel exhausted.

Soaking the packets in cream before launch proved a smarter idea. A soggy packet of sugar finally knocked my phone to the floor, but it had just occurred to me that I had no way to dial someone for help. I had to wait for one of my parents to come home. Surely this couldn’t last for too long.

After hours of misery and guilt gave no progress, I was left with a terrible regret for the day's events. Determined not to give up hope, I began to pour cups of coffee to maintain my entertainment. I fought not only my own freedom, but also still maintained the thought of also winning the science fair. I soon found my sugar and cream dispenser to be empty, and sank again into a deplorable depression.

     A large bang shocked me from my unaware slumber. Before me, having fixed himself up from the floor, stood my own body. It looked me with a slight happiness. “I have been upgraded.” it announced in a slightly concerning monotone. The kitchen was silent as I struggled to understand the situation. Then it said, “Would you like some coffee?'”

     The idea dawned on me, and I wasted no time in seeing the possibility of this revelation. I told the coffee maker, which was now in control of my body, that I really needed help. It observed me cautiously, then asked if I would like that with extra cream or sugar. Maintaining patience, as difficult as it was at this point, I explained the instruction more detailed. I watched with great anticipation as my body of seventeen jerked its way out of my kitchen. It rounded the corner down the steps, and there was a hopeless crash. It had tripped down the steps. But to my relief, I heard it continue on its way out the door.

     Minutes passed... then hours. I entertained myself shooting expresso packet projectiles at the bird. On the morning of the third day, the day of the science fair, I accepted that the coffee maker had failed in its control of my body, and that help was unfortunately not on its way. Grasped by the despair of one who must solve the puzzle of coffee maker suicide, I accepted the situation, and unfortunately my fate.

     Driven on by an unrelenting hatred towards my creation, I began expelling the entire amount of water in my boiler. As the floor filled with boiling hot water, the first hints of deadly steam flickered in my mechanisms, I began the acceptance of my coffee-suicide as the water would soon be reaching the counter.

Once the plumber had visited and cleaned my kitchen, I was identified as the fault, unplugged and sent away to a repair shop. The owner there, finding nothing to remove but a faulty speech chip, soon put me up for sale. I only know this because, on being reconnected to the power outlet, I found myself in a shiny, open room, which looked very similar to that of the teachers lounge at my school. Missing my electronic voice, I could only listen to the conversation of the teachers, discussing the odd conduct of their participants in the fair. The end of their discussion stopped at his arrival. I gazed at the door in silent misery, as my body stepped vibrantly into the room, displaying its newly designed poster-board. At the top of the list I could only make out, “Medium coffee, extra/extra.”