kahrabaa

For absolutely years we've been grinding our coffee beans each morning with a hand mu67anah. I'd love to say that the daily effort of grinding coffee has buffed up our arms but it has only increased our morning grouchiness and left us as skinny as ever.

But the satisfaction of drinking coffee that is 6aazij has been worth it.

Then, a breakthrough. One day, Theyab got his power drill, clamped it to the hilt of the mu67anah, and BOOM - suddenly we had created our own mu67anah kahrabaa2iiah.

Awfully proud of himself, he loaded the coffee into the machine with a certain swagger, placed two cups underneath the tap, hit the switch and -

'أي!' he yelled, jumping back from the machine.

'sh9aar?' I said. (sha-saar)

'I just got a shock,' he explained, shaking his injured hand.

'I'm sure it was just a build-up of static," I dismissed, reaching to turn on the coffee machine.

'OW!' I shrieked, snapping my hand away. 'You're right, fii kahrabaa!" (fee cah-rab-aa)

'gilt-l-ich.' (gilt-litch)

'But what about -" the question hung in the air. Our tired eyes slowly turned to the little button on the coffee machine that was glowing red. Red for ready. Red for electric shock.

Arabic	Pronounced?	English
مطحنة كهربائة	mu67anah kahrabaa2iiah	electric grinder
شنو صار؟	sh9aar?	what happened?
في كهربا	fii kahrabaa	there’s electricity
قلت لچ!	gilt-l-ich!	told you so! (>f)