Secret Sauce

Helen and I were having no luck with her coffee machine. Helen's frothed milk was often shapeless, and mine appeared as something that a coffee machine had sneezed into.

In despair, Helen arranged a lesson for us at a nearby roastery. There, a nice fellow took us through all the finer points of milk frothing: first you "pull" the milk, then you "swirl" it; you hold the jug at this angle, and then that, etc, etc. Our tutelage was exhaustive and we returned home full of optimism.

Helen was the first to step up to the machine. She took a deep breath, set her arm at a right angle, the milk jug at 45 degrees, and opened the steam valve. The sound of rolling milk filled the room, and nobody moved. At this point, three-year-old Reed entered; he positioned himself next to Helen.

"I peed in that cup, Mama," he said, pointing to the jug in Helen's hands.

Helen paid him no attention, concentrating wholly on the milk.

"I peed in that CUP!" He repeated.

Then again, and again: 

"I PEED IN THAT CUP!"

"I PEEEEED IN THAT CUP!

"I. PEED. IN. THAT. CUP!"

Miraculously, amid all these confidence-shattering denunciations, Helen maintained her concentration and produced some fine frothed milk (as above).

She insisted there was "no chance" that Reed could have peed in the jug. No chance. He didn't know what he was talking about, she said. And I believed her; I drank the coffee.

But as I lay awake in bed that night, the question swirled around my head like ever-expanding hot milk: if it weren't true, why would the little blighter say it? Why?

I just know he's peed in something.