Since our arrival, we have been searching for a companion espresso maker similar in size to the one we purchased two years ago. When we finally found the original it was only after a two-week, stop-in-every-store quest. This time we decided to use Amazon. You’ve probably seen the sort of coffee maker I am speaking of: aluminum, the bottom holds water, the middle the coffee, and the screw-on top produces the finished product. It’s an Italian espresso maker. Now, we thought that the sizes of such would be more or less standard. We checked the one we have, but not an identifying mark on it. For us, it provides one decent mug of café-au-lait, so our conclusion that it was probably a two-cupper for Europeans. They like small cups of coffee. We ordered from Amazon.fr and waited.
We received a notice that our pot had arrived, but unfortunately, we were not home when La Poste attempted delivery. Not entirely accurate. The French post office apparently never actually attempts delivery of parcels in the pedestrian-only section of town. We waited another two days for the notice to appear in our letter box. Yes, it does take that long. Then, with passport and notice in hand, we retrieved our treasure. As soon as we took it out of the box we realized our mistake. A two-cupper looks like a miniature that belongs with my Barbie doll tea set. We quickly re-ordered, this time a four-cupper, believing we finally had the right size. Jann is a Prime member, so of course we asked for the free overnight delivery without thinking about what that might mean here. We waited, and waited. No notice, nothing. We call that rien in French… which means ‘nothing.’ Jann finally located the missing parcel in Nice four days later. “Would it be convenient for us to pick it up there?” asked a hopeful phone agent. Okay, overnight delivery wasn’t going to work unless we travelled three miles to retrieve it. That sort of defeats the value of home delivery. Send a new one by the post we asked. That one we can pick up only a few blocks away.
Today, a rainy day here, Jann picks it up and happily tells me it has arrived. This is true, but unfortunately it is yet another size. We now have our original one bracketed. Must be the three-cupper we need. We now have four espresso pots, each one providing a different, yet ascending quantity of espresso. Yes, in theory we could send two of them back for a refund. But that is another, much longer, story.
