Every work morning, Joe gets up a little before me, puts his bath on, and then goes downstairs to make coffee. I get up when the coffee is ready. Getting up and having a cup of coffee in my hand thirty seconds after rising is really one of the things that moderates my normally horrific morning personality. If I have to make the coffee then that whole first 20 minutes of the day need to be really gentle, quiet and settled. There can be no challenges of any sort until I've got glorious caffeine flowing into me - and I think the fact that Joe makes that happen is one of the most loving and sensible things he does for me. That's why it's particularly heartbreaking that the system might have to go.
Joe's always been sort of challenged by coffee making, and recently we got a new coffee maker that just seems to be beyond his talents. As a matter of fact, right here might be a good time to mention that we got a new coffee maker because Joe destroyed the last one in a really incredible scene. Let's mark down the things Joe has done to coffee makers.
1. Washed the pot, dumped the old grounds, ground new coffee, added the grounds, added water and turned the coffee maker on -- and neglected then to replace the pot under the drip thingie, so that when the water started dripping onto the grounds in the filter basket, it filled up, overflowed and backed up grounds into the water resevoir - so that the intake hose thing got full of grounds, and a coffee flood ensued.
Result: dead coffee maker. No coffee.
2. Joe got a new coffee maker to try and manage my anger. This one grinds the beans and then makes coffee. Joe thought it might be better if it did more things so he had to do less. This isn't exactly a crime against coffee, but it was such a faulty premise that I feel justified in listing it.
3. Added beans, added water, replaced carafe... but sadly forgot to take out the grounds from the day before so that the whole system was overloaded.
Result: No coffee, and substantial coffee flood.
4. Added beans, added water, replaced carafe, didn't turn maker on.
Result: No coffee, but at least we bounced back from that one with just some frowning and desperation.
*note: this led to several attempts to manage the timer. Not worth it.
5. Added beans, added water, turned maker on, but didn't empty the previous days leftovers out of the pot, thus resulting in coffee overload.
Result: No coffee. Coffee flood. Discouraging attempt by husband to drink horrible yesterday/today coffee combo.
6. Added beans, added water, turned maker on, emptied carafe, replaced carafe, but didn't check to see if there were enough beans.
Result: Whole potful of demoralizing coffee scented water.
7. Added beans, ground beans, added water.. emptied carafe, replaced carafe, but sadly, got distracted by email and didn't add full measure of water.
Result: Coffee syrup. Interesting invention, possible application on ice cream, but not drinkable at 7am.
8. Added beans, cleaned filter, ground beans, washed carafe, replaced carafe, added water, turned maker on. Sadly, left filter on the counter, so half of the grounds washed into carafe, and the other half then plugged the drippy hole thing.
Result: Undrinkable coffee... AND a coffee flood, complete with grounds.
9. Added beans, cleaned filter, replaced the filter, ground HALF THE BEANS added all the water. Turned coffee maker on.
Result. Water that was almost coffee in an awful way that gave you hope by looking like coffee, smelling like coffee and yet NOT BEING COFFEE.
Predictable additional result: Wife holding cup, weeping softly, wondering how there can always be a new way for him to do this.
10. (Today.) Added beans- enough beans, cleaned filter, replaced filter, washed carafe, replaced carafe, added the right amount of water - turned maker on, only to discover that the chute that the ground beans travel was clogged with other grounds, suffered coffee scented water again, used crochet hook to clean said chute, repeated process including crochet hook maneover, before finally, on the third attempt - making a pot of coffee.
Result: Coffee - but out of beans. Dry grounds spread for miles. Several kitchen cloths dirtied in the attempt, slightly odd vision of cat eating small mountain of dry ground coffee off floor and...
Wife saying to husband something like "How can you be so really, really smart and still not be able to do this?" and husband replying with the immortal words:
"I dunno honey. I think maybe I need to drink coffee before I can make coffee."