I Need a Real Man … Badly

Or any female currently breathing. My white stuff is empty and I don’t know how to fix it.

This is what it looks like when new. Source: Pic by author.

Our apartment block just got new eco-friendly boilers. It comes with a filter full of white powder. The powder is not cocaine. But nobody will tell me what it is. I overheard the plumber dude asking his apprentice,

“Why does the foreigner want to know.”

I suggested to him that perhaps everybody wants to know what is flowing down the waterpipes in their castle. He reliably informed me,

“No. Nobody has ever asked before.”

“Ever,” I persisted.

“Ever,” he sneered. I decided right there and then not to offer him coffee.

A few moments later, I had a change of heart. I walked into the kitchen and asked if they would like a coffee.

“Yes,” they replied. No hot-blooded Italian turns down a coffee. Or Bruschetta. Or any aperitivo. Even if it is made by a stupid inquisitive foreigner.

I stood next to them in the kitchen and proceeded to make Moka coffee for three. I was closely watched to make sure, as a foreigner, I did not add garlic or some strange additive and that I made it like mama used to make it.