“The Great Coffee Catastrophe”

It all began on a Monday—naturally. No disaster has ever struck on a Saturday afternoon while everyone’s happily napping. Mondays have a reputation for a reason, and this one was determined to uphold it.

Bradley Jenkins, middle manager at SnorTech Industries (a company specializing in anti-snoring technology), was running late. Not fashionably late, not “oops I missed the bus” late—more like “the sun is laughing at me” late. His alarm had betrayed him, his shower had run cold, and the toast had exploded out of the toaster with such force that one slice ended up in the cat’s water bowl.

But Bradley had a secret weapon: coffee. The dark, steamy elixir of life. The magical potion that turned him from a potato into a functioning adult. With the desperation of a man on the brink, he stumbled into his kitchen, punched the “ON” button of his new high-tech coffee machine, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The machine blinked at him.

Then it made a noise like a confused goose.

Then it hissed.

Then it exploded.

Not violently, but with enough drama to fling coffee grounds into Bradley’s left ear and a puff of steam into his nostrils.

“Oh no,” he whispered, looking at the coffee-stained instructions that came with the machine. “Was I supposed to remove the safety seal first?”

From behind him came a disgruntled meow. Bradley turned to see his cat, Chairman Meow, staring at him with the judgment only a cat can summon. The Chairman was an old, grumpy tabby who ruled Bradley’s apartment with a furry iron paw. And today, he did not approve.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bradley muttered. “It was a design flaw.”

Chairman Meow meowed again, this time louder and somehow more sarcastically. He flicked his tail and turned away, knocking over Bradley’s half-eaten toast in what was clearly an act of protest.

Now 47 minutes late, Bradley threw on his least-wrinkled shirt, stepped into mismatched socks, and ran out the door without coffee, dignity, or hope. What he did have was a bright red coffee stain on his shirt and the faint smell of burnt plastic clinging to his eyebrows.

Act Two: The Meeting of Doom

By the time Bradley arrived at SnorTech Industries, he had sweat in his armpits, coffee grounds in his pockets, and a single toast crumb stuck to his lower lip. He burst into the conference room just as his boss, Margaret "Iron Lips" Dingle, was beginning her presentation.

“Bradley,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “how nice of you to join us. I assume the apocalypse delayed you?”

“Something like that,” Bradley mumbled, sliding into the nearest seat and trying to make himself look smaller. This wasn’t easy—Bradley was 6’4” and had the posture of a confused giraffe.

Margaret returned to her PowerPoint. “Now, our new anti-snore pillow prototype—code name: Project Muffle—has been tested successfully on snoring dogs. We’ll now begin testing on humans. Bradley, you’ll be the first volunteer.”

Bradley blinked. “Wait—what?”

“Oh yes,” said Margaret sweetly. “Your roommate filled out the form. Chairman Meow, I believe his name was?”

The room fell into stunned silence.

“You mean my cat filled out the form?” Bradley asked, aghast.

“Well, someone scribbled it in red crayon and added a paw print,” Margaret said. “We assumed that was a signature.”

Bradley considered explaining but gave up. He had bigger problems—he’d just been volunteered to sleep in the office for three nights with a strange prototype pillow wrapped around his head.

Act Three: Sleepless in SnorTech

That night, Bradley lay in the break room, wearing what could only be described as a memory foam football helmet attached to a white noise generator and lavender-scented ear muffs. The pillow also had a small fan that occasionally puffed air into his nostrils “to simulate gentle breeze therapy.”

“Why is there a timer labeled ‘soothing shock mode’?” he whispered to himself.

He fell asleep somewhere around 2:00 a.m. He was woken at 2:13 by a small jolt to the ear and a robotic voice whispering, “Snoring detected. Adjusting frequencies.”

Bradley didn’t snore. His lungs were as silent as his dating life.

At 2:47 a.m., the fan malfunctioned and began blowing stale tuna-scented air directly into his nostrils.

At 3:06, the pillow attempted to massage his jaw and instead jammed his mouth shut with the force of a polite alligator.

By 4:12, he had declared war.

Act Four: Vengeance and Victory

The next morning, Bradley stumbled into Margaret’s office like a man who had just returned from battle.

“How did it go?” she asked, sipping from her travel mug that said “Snore Less, Live More.”

“I haven’t slept. My eyebrows are twitching independently. I think I smelled my dreams.”

Margaret frowned. “The prototype wasn’t supposed to shock you.”

“I didn’t snore!” he cried. “The only thing making noise was my soul escaping.”

“Well,” she said brightly, “you’re scheduled for two more nights. I’ve added a banana-scented diffuser for extra comfort.”

Bradley didn’t remember walking out of her office. He only remembered thinking about coffee. Sweet, precious coffee.

So he did the unthinkable. He returned home, reassembled the coffee machine, removed the safety seal, plugged it in, and pressed “ON.”

It blinked.

It hummed.

It brewed.

Golden, life-saving liquid filled his cup.

He sipped it, tears in his eyes, just as Chairman Meow leaped onto the counter and swatted the mug off with the grace of a ballet dancer.

Crash.

Silence.

Bradley stared at the broken mug, then at the cat.

“You did that on purpose,” he whispered.

Chairman Meow meowed and sat on the broken toast slice.

Epilogue: Promotion and Perks

Three days later, Margaret announced that Project Muffle had been placed on indefinite hold “due to an unfortunate nasal incident involving a different volunteer and a marshmallow.”

Bradley, now a coffee-stained folk hero, was promoted to “Chief Sleep Analyst,” a position that came with a private office, a fancy new espresso machine, and a strict "no prototype testing" clause.

Chairman Meow, meanwhile, launched an Instagram account. He had over 20,000 followers and regularly posted photos of Bradley’s destroyed belongings with captions like “Not Sorry” and “Human Deserved It.”

The coffee machine worked. The toast stopped flying. Life, in all its absurdity, went on.

And Bradley? He never bought another high-tech pillow again.