Fridays with Elbert vol. 1

Apparently Friday's are exciting days around the office. I'm off on Friday's so I miss the fun, but the entertaining stories get passed along.

As I've said in previous blogs, Elbert has become central to the life of the Furniture Bank even though he does not work here and really has no particular reason he needs to hang around.

Several Friday's ago Elbert had a run in with the coffeemaker. David recounted the story for me:

I was on the phone talking with a donor.

'Yes, we take mattresses. Can I get your zip code? That will help me determine what day we can come out and pick the mattresses up,' he was talking in his polite, customer service voice.

Suddenly I heard this loud dripping sound. I turned my head and there was light brown liquid flowing from the coffeemaker. He focused on the donor, "I'm...I'm going to have to call you back," he said as he hung up.

The liquid was all over the place, David explains with emphatic motions with his hands and arms. I mean everywhere and spreading!

Elbert was outside smoking a cigarette.

David rushed through the front door to get outside, "Elbert, there's a situation with the coffeemaker. I'm going to need you to come in here and take care of this." He busted back through the Furniture Bank entrance and began to clean-up the mess.

He was good about trying to clean it up, but halfway through he decided he needed a break, David said with a note of question.

This is particularly funny because for the blocks of time Elbert is around the office his main activity, if you can call it that, is sitting. It's not like he was moving furniture in 90+ degree weather like our donations crew. He sits, asks David a random question here and there, and drinks cup of coffee after cup of coffee.

"So, what happened here, Elbert?," David said.

I'm not sure how the conversation continued, but Elbert eventually revealed that he decided to simplify the coffee making process. Apparently, in his rat race of a day, he couldn't spare the extra thirty seconds to add cream, sugar and stir the coffee. Instead, he thought it much better to add the cream prior to brewing the coffee.

Since then the coffeemaker is like driving behind an out-of-towner. Sometimes it clips right along and then suddenly it slows to an abrupt stop and then revs back up again. Lonnie started coffee this morning at 8 a.m. and it was still brewing at 10:30 when I got my second cup.

The broken coffeemaker is quite unfortunate since Elbert drinks several pots a day.