The Preparation:
1. Learn how to walk.
2. Learn how to get up and down a stepladder.
3. Learn how to drive.
4. Learn how to climb a tree - at least one.
5. Find out what coffee is.
6. Learn how to flirt.
7. Learn how to buy things.
8. Learn about jumper cables.
9. Learn to like coffee. This is probably the most important step, but it's the hardest one for some people. Fake it with hot chocolate, if necessary.
The Execution:
1. Find a store that sells coffee.
2. Drive to it.
3. Walk around the store until you find the coffee.
4. Stop right there.
5. Grab a 50 kg bag of coffee beans. Use both hands. Pull really hard.
6. Drag bag of coffee beans to the checkout counter. Keep an eye out for small children and pets.
7. Heave said bag of coffee beans onto the counter, destroying it, probably. Apologize if necessary.
8. Choose one of the following, depending on your schedule: If time permits, flirt with checkout person, as appropriate (apologize for destroying counter first). If possible, flirt to the point where checkout person forgets about everything, especially the bag of coffee beans. If you are too busy, do not flirt; just pay checkout person for the coffee beans - R700 to R900 depending on variety, plus tax.
9. Drag bag of coffee beans to the car.
10. Heave bag of coffee beans onto the roof. The checkout person may be willing to help, depending upon outcome of step 8.
11. Lash bag of coffee beans to the roof. Jumper cables work well for this. Clamp jaws to door handles.
12. Drive to nearest industrial park.
13. Park right next to the first 250 liter drum you encounter under a tree.
14. Wait till everyone goes home.
15. Attach a powerful magnet with an eyebolt to the top lid of the drum.
16. Undo one of the jumper cables.
17. Grab the magnet's eyebolt with one jaw of the jumper cable.
18. Clamp the other jaw of the jumper cable to your belt, or to your cell phone. (You may experience a sudden onslaught of pent-up pages because jumper cables make for superb antennas. Do not let them distract you).
19. Climb up in the tree. Just go right ahead.
20. Clamp the jumper cable jaw to a tree limb - not too big and not too small. Try not to have much slack in the cable.
21. Climb down from the tree.
22. Cut out the top of the drum. An oxy-acetylene torch is handy for this. A hacksaw will do at a pinch, but it will take about four hours and a dozen blades to get through it. Cut the lid away from the drum along the inside seam where it meets the vertical wall of the drum. [Notice how the cable prevents the lid from dropping into the drum.]
23. Grab the cable just above the eyebolt, lift straight up two centimeters, then yank the lid away from the drum. Let it dangle from the tree limb. Try to keep out of its way, as its edge may be a bit jagged.
24. Bail out most of the contents of the drum, using a hubcap, a milk jug, or a shoe.
25. Set fire to whatever's left. Let burn for 5 min. This will get rid of most hydrocarbons, and eliminate at least 70% of the carcinogens.
26. Grasping the jumper cable, position the dangling sliced-off lid atop the drum.
27. Climb up the tree.
28. Squeeze the jaw of the cable to release it from the tree limb, sending the lid and cable crashing into the drum. This will extinguish the flames right away.
29. Climb down out of the tree.
30. Pull on a pair of asbestos gloves.
31. Reach down into the drum, grab onto the cable, and haul it and the lid out of the drum. Try not to touch the sides of the drum, as they are probably at 450 degrees F. Or hotter, still.
32. Detach the jumper cable from the drum lid.
33. Throw the lid onto the back seat. You will need it later.
34. Undo the other jumper cable from bag of coffee beans.
35. Hoist the drum up onto the bag of beans. Use both hands for this. Do not slip, or not even your mom will be able to recognize your melted face. [Note: Depending on whether the beans bag is canvas or plastic, it will smolder a bit and burst into flames, or melt and burst into flames.]
36. Ignore the flames, if possible, or blast them out with a fire extinguisher - preferably the dry powder type. Use an old broom to clear off the windshield, if necessary.
37. Re-secure the jumper cables. The insulation may melt, but they probably will not actually ignite. [Next time you start your car with these cables, you may notice a short circuit or two, exploding your battery.]
38. Ditch the asbestos glove; it's too hard to work the radio with them on.
39. Before you leave, look around for a small shovel. It will come in handy later.
40. Drive home. I'm leaving out the individual steps, as there is not enough space here to describe them for everyone.
41. Empty out the refrigerator.
42. Toss fridge contents into trash can. You won't need that stuff anymore.
43. Undo the jumper cables.
44. Drop the 250 liter drum onto the ground. Watch out for small children, pets, your toes, and the side of your car.
45. Wheel or drag the drum into the kitchen. Watch out for small children, pets, and floor coverings of any kind.
46. Push the bag of coffee beans off the roof of the car. Depending on how charred it is, it will split somewhat, or altogether.
47. If it only splits open a little bit, try dragging it into the kitchen, and dumping it into the 250 liter drum. Shake the bag violently to transfer the beans to the drum. If it's a plastic bag, yank it out of the drum; if it's a canvas bag you can leave it in there. It really will not affect the taste of the finished product all that much, and will improve its texture.
48. If it splits open a lot, then...
49. Sweep as much coffee, and other ecosystem components, into as large a dustpan as you can find.
50. Empty the dustpan into the250 liter drum, now in the kitchen. [Repeat the above two steps two or three hundred times.]
51. Discard the bag, if it’s plastic, and optionally, the car.
52. You will be starving by now. Rescue at least enough food from the trash can to make a sandwich. Rescue more of the discarded food if possible, since there was actually no need to clear out the fridge after all.
53. Using a garden hose, fill the 250 liter drum to the brim with cold water, being careful not to spill any on the floor.
54. Carefully measure and memorize the height of the 250 liter drum.
55. Carefully measure from top of one of the stove burners, straight up. Mark height of drum + twenty centimeters on hood, cabinet, or whatever happens to be there.
56. Carefully, more or less, smash away whatever hood, cabinet, or other part of the kitchen is below the mark. A five kg sledgehammer works well for this operation. A chainsaw may be helpful, but watch out for nails.
57. Take a deep breath, hold it, and hoist the drum up onto the stove. Lift with your legs, not your back. If you do not happen to have five or six large friends standing by to assist, this step may prove difficult.
58. Failing step 57, gather up 55 or so liters jugs of milk.
59. Drink as much of the milk as possible, but no more than six liters, as you want to save room for the coffee. Dump the rest down the sink.
60. Stir the coffee and water in the drum with the small shovel to put the coffee beans into suspension in the water.
61. Dip a jug into the drum, mouth first, so that it fills up with the coffee bean-and-water solution.
62. Set the jug on the floor.
63. Repeat the three steps above until you run out of jugs.
64. Admit that you have completely forgotten to grind the coffee beans. Better to realize this now, rather than later.
65. Look under your sink. Look for a "disposal unit", with a pipe coming out of one side of it.
66. If there is no such disposal unit under your sink, just give up. Drive to the local coffeeshop and console yourself with a cheap cup of insipid store-bought coffee.
67. If you do find the disposal unit, thank your lucky stars; then saw off the drainpipe sticking out of the side of it.
68. Find the vacuum cleaner. Everyone has one.
69. Detach or tear off the hose from the vacuum cleaner.
70. Transport the vacuum cleaner hose to the kitchen, thrashing it around to dislodge most of its contents.
71. Attach the vacuum cleaner hose to the sawed-off pipe from your disposal unit, somehow. Lots of duct tape can compensate for all but the most radical differences in aperture diameter.
72. Don protective goggles, or at least contact lenses.
73. Throw away the contents of one of the gallon jugs, or find another empty one.
74. Aim the free end of the hose at the empty gallon jug.
75. Turn on the disposal unit.
76. Dump one of the jugs full of coffee beans and water into the sink. [The coffee (now freshly ground) and the water will be spun into the empty jug... maybe.]
77. If the diameter of the hose is much greater than the diameter of the mouth of the milk jug, much of what comes out of the hose will end up on the floor. If this proves unsatisfactory, try using a funnel, which will direct the initial burst of coffee sludge entirely into the jug, until the funnel backs up, at which point the rest will go somewhere else (no problem: you're wearing the protective goggles).
78. Cycle through all the jugs until all the coffee has been ground.
79. Turn off the disposal unit.
80. Hoist the 250 liter drum onto the stove-top. It should be easy now that it's mostly empty.
81. Center the drum over the four burners.
82. Pour the contents of all of the jugs into the 250 liter drum. A stepladder may be helpful here, if you're under 7 feet tall.
83. Use the shovel to scoop up as much of the coffee sludge from the floor as possible, and schlep it up into the drum.
84. Give the coffee five minutes to settle to the bottom.
85. Skim off about 15 cm of water with one of the milk jugs. Dump it into the side of the sink that does not lead to the disposal unit, preferably. Try not to get any on the floor.
86. Dump in one 2 kg bag of sugar. Make sure the bag is made of paper.
87. Empty the contents of 70 cans of Cremora into the drum.
88. Insert shovel, stir gently for 5 minutes.
89. The fun part: Ignite all four burners! Turn them up full blast.
90. Go out and buy some groceries to replace the ones you trashed, or work on your stamp collection for a while. Or clean your bike.
91. Come back home to see whether the coffee is done or not. You can make a simple viscosity test without special tools, as follows:
92. Find a dinner plate.
93. Find a R1 coin. There has to be one somewhere.
94. Find a tube of Super Glue.
95. Set all of these things on the counter next to the sink.
96. Use the Super Glue to stick the coin to the inside of the dinner plate - anywhere.
97. Give the glue half an hour to dry thoroughly.
98. Grab the dinner plate and climb up the stepladder.
99. On your way up the stepladder, define a convenient time unit.
100. Dip the dinner plate vertically into the drum, an inch past the quarter.
101. Hold it there for either 40 or 750 of your time units, depending on whether they are too long or too short, respectively.
102. Remove the plate by lifting straight up and then away from the drum.
103. Hold the plate, still vertically, over the sink.
104. Count to sixty, as slowly as possible.
105. At sixty, look carefully at the plate and try to spot the coin. If you can see it at all, go back for more groceries, or more stamps. Come back later and a repeat the five step above until the coin is completely buried by the coffee.
106. If you really cannot see the coin, even by pretending, then the coffee is "done"!
107. Find all of your coffee cups, including any your "friends" have borrowed.
108. Arrange these cups on the stovetop, in a ring around the drum (discard any pots, pans, pets or burner-grates that may be in the way).
109. Fetch the drum-lid from the back seat of the car (unless the latter was discarded in step 51).
110. Climb up the stepladder with the drum-lid.
111. Drop the drum lid into the drum. This will crush all the coffee grounds against the bottom of the drum, and hold them there - just as in a (infinitely more expensive) "French press". Some, or all, of the coffee will spill over the rim of the drum, onto the floor, mostly - but odds are good that some of it will splash into your cups. If not, re-position the cups and plunge again.
Coffee time!
112. Climb down from the ladder.
113. Grab the cup with the most coffee in it.
114. Toss it straight back, like a shot of whisky.
115. Throw up, if necessary. Otherwise, just bask in the afterglow - while it lasts.
116. Check into the nearest hospital. You will be fine in a few days.
