Dish Water and the Espresso Gods

It was not my morning. I had three shots in a row choke my Oscar. I kept making the grind progressively coarser but no dice. For some reason switching from Community Coffee Decaf to Startbucks Espresso Blend (My wife loves the stuff for some reason) required a massive change in grinder setting.  It took four full turns on the Macap M4 stepless before I was able to finally to pull a halfway decent shot for my wife's morning latte. I knew after the first sip she was not happy. I said, "I know it is bad but what is wrong with it?" She paused and very polity told me it was watery and tasted dirty - dirty like used dish water.