While the rest of the world were queueing up for an iPhone 3G, I went and took our Krups fully automated espresso machine to Changi to get it fixed.
The receptionist was friendly and made small talk about coffee when she recognised me from less than a month ago when I took the thing in to be repaired. Then she got a “Chinese lady” to attend to me because “she’s the expert with all the coffee machines because today many coffee machine come in”.
The “Chinese Lady” came to the front desk, and asked what was wrong with our fully automated Krups, so I said, “it doesn’t work when you press the button for any of the preset coffees, and it makes a really loud noise and it doesn’t stop until you turn off the machine.“
She said, “Like this?” and started to mimic the noise a lawnmower makes when it goes over a mound of pebbles, turning the Malay Receptionist into a tudung-covered bunch of giggles.
“Oh, so you know that noise”, I said.
“But it’s normal for it to make that noise what”, she said.
“No, it’s not, it’s ten times louder than the grinding noise the machine makes when it’s grinding the coffee beans”, I said, “Plug it in an you’ll know what I mean”.
So she plugged the machine to an outlet and turned it on, and sure enough the lawnmower effect came on loud enough for the two other men sitting on the sofa in the reception waiting to send in their broken Rowenta vacuum cleaner to remark, “Wah, liddat make coffee one ah?”
So, the “Chinese Lady” laughed and shot a stern look at Malay Receptionist because she’s almost laughed the tudung off her head, and that really wouldn’t have been nice, and proceeded to type out a service request statement for me.
She took an age before finally deciding to type in all caps: NOISY NO COFFEE COME OUT.
I can’t wait till the Krups GOT COFFEE COME OUT, AND NOT SO NOISY ANY MORE.
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