In memoriam bodgimundius dei
Dearly beloved,
We are gathered today to mourn the loss of The Randomnerd Zassenhaus Coffee Bean Grinder.
The RZCBG passed yesterday morning, after protracted and painful soldering; only reaching a moderate 36 years’ turning.
Although of Germanic extraction, RZCBG saw first light in Jenners Department Store in September 1985 and lived in Scotland during the early days, keeping four thousand, three hundred and twelve hang-overs bearable. Those Teutonic steel burrs chewed darkest beans day on day to stimulate after-dark companions, brain cells and mindless conversation.
In it’s prime, RZCBG moved to Yorkshire to provide almost three decades of ground coffee to one man, with only a neat little wooden carcass and a small wooden drawer and a cute little shiny handle and one of those silky wooden knobs that fit so well in the hand and a lovely chrome lid that would slip so nicely round on its housing with that sassy swish....
In August 1999, RZCBG became seriously unwell, after prolonged use with a dark roast Rwandan Kivu. Surgery revealed a lightly worn spindle, a loose plastic grommet and severe spring washer sag. The steel burrs were in perfect condition, and the wooden box glowed languidly in the summer heat on the workshop bench.
....An intoxicating aroma of Monsoon Malabar fine ground espresso filled the dusty air as the mend-surgeon snapped on a gardening glove and reached for the hacksaw, bending hotly over the scattered parts spread before him on the throbbing work surface...
R considered a mercy trip to the Black Forest to attend the Zassenhaus Intensive Care unit. On reviewing the pricing structure in conversation with Herr Haus, R put away his passport and lederhosen in favour of a major reconstructive surgery using MAP gas, a Leatherman Super Tool, a nylon washer from a redundant herbicide sprayer and a Zassenhaus-style grommet carved from the neck of a scrap domestic watering can. The original spring was stretched in heat, tempered in the oven while roasting Sunday lunch and retensioned.
Although not entirely all Zassenhaus, and emotionally damaged to see bought ground coffee had been used in the mokka pot for at least a fortnight, RZCBG recovered to light duties for eight months, right up to the millennium. Only French press and V60 dropper grinds. The moka pot was retired. A sudden relapse - where it appeared bizarrely that watering can nozzle wasn’t a durable enough material for a main spindle sleeve - encouraged R to spend four new English pounds, plus postage, on his dear kitchen companion to purchase and install an Original Plastic Spacer (article 104097/42, vorsprungspitzgesheitzengrommetefritzifahernschticke), direct from Germany. These were their salad days. Expresso grinding again. Twenty years of daily highs together.
Severe spindle wobble set in on Monday.
A deep Leatherman Super Tool dismantle found a missing grommet had gone unnoticed at the last five-year service in autumn of 2015 (the damage possibly linked to letting another household member try to use RZCBG in mid-2013, resulting in around seven minutes of inappropriate and unskilled twisting), and the main spindle had become detached from the central chromed housing. Beyond the bodge, the dismantler’s waters suggested. Always listen to a bodger’s waters.
Herr Haus talked the rapidly assembled emergency bodge team through the procedure via Zoom, but none of the scrapamedics present knew any German. All the team could fathom was that a new spindle, lid and grommet could be had from stores, but postage to non EU countries would cost €776.45. Dremel grinding, removal of chromium by wet and dry, heating and soldering, along with repeated, graphic Yorkshire swearing, could not save this heroic domestic implement.
RZCBG was pronounced broken beyond repair at 11.15 am on 21 April 2021.
A brief interment ceremony will take place on Saturday 26 April at 11 am, where RZCBG will receive a terminal dismantling. The wooden parts will be placed on a garden bonfire for disposal after dark. The solder-ravaged chromium elements will be committed to the heap with other scrap to be weighed in when there’s a trailer-load. The “useful“ parts will, of course, be put in a jar in the workshop, on a high shelf, with an illegible oily label, to be found and thrown away in around nine years from now. The lovely twirly knob on that cool handle with the embossed lettering will be refashioned as a something-or-other - hey, a key ring would be cool. Look! There’s a hole in one end! - when we get round to it. An attachment to something that needs a lovely twirly handle, maybe.
RZCBG leaves behind R and a small, grey dog.
No flowers. Family only.
Generous donations of cash can be sent via PayPal to the grieving bodger by sending a DM for details.
Catholic menders may like to sing this prayer a dozen times daily for seven days, to the Graduale Simplex mass tunes:
misereatur nostro omnipotens Drago Bodgitus,
et dismissis exiguo metallis nostris,
perducat nos ferramenta ad vitam aeternis
conferruno mei
conferruno mei
