I arrived home to find Rocky the Diabolical Cat™ in the kitchen perched on his custom barstool, fidgeting with a new stainless steel espresso machine. “It’s my new Isomac Venus machine,” he reverently said, “a significant upgrade from my previous Saeco machine. My editor Bartolomeo bought it for me. It’s nice to see that someone appreciates my writing!”

“I appreciate your writing,” I said.

“My friend, you are to the creative arts as John Ashcroft is to those of jurisprudence, and that is not meant as a compliment,” he replied haughtily.

“Speaking of your writing, your interview with the robot Bart-tron 2K3 certainly was odd,” I observed.

“Yeah, after it was over he was rolling across the street, hit a pothole and fell down. The door on his chest flipped open, and out tumbled a small Herbert Hoover robot that had been controlling him!” Rocky laughed. “But no one noticed. So Bart, I mean Bart-tron, lives on in all his fraudulent glory.”

Rocky tamped coffee into his machine’s portafilter, hit the brew switch, then slowly danced “The Grind” while the dark mahogany espresso flowed into the two tiny cups. “Do it, Venus baby!” he intoned like a feline Barry White.

“These beans came from our friend David in Chicago. They’re 100 percent organic, fairly traded coffee beans, bought at an equitable price from a farmer’s co-op in Chiapas, Mexico. David roasts them himself, you know,” Rocky said.

He handed me a tiny cup of espresso. I took a sip. “Very tasty, dear fellow,” I said.

He took a sip from his cup. “Quite,” he agreed.

After a minute or two I said, “Rocky, I think I’m getting a headache from this coffee.”

“Don’t fret, my dear J,” Rocky said, “it happens sometimes when people first drink organic coffee — it’s the brain crying out for all those pesticides and herbicides it’s used to!”