Recently, I had coffee pot drama (yes I am aware that belong to a small group of people who would consider the coffee pot breaking a drama). I have been a grind-n-brew gal forever. I liked the ritual of filling the beans and water every night and then cleaning it all out every day. It gave me purpose, structure and routine...
Ok, in truth, I hated doing all of that. I just liked that in the end I had a pot of coffee that was freshly ground...even though I couldn’t really ever taste the difference. I hated coming home late and then having to make the coffee before I went to bed (to those of you that would say do it in the morning I would say you are not my people!)...some nights when my mom would babysit - she would do this for me. I can honestly say that that simple act made me feel so incredibly loved. Doing that for me, removing a chore from my lengthy to-do list, was such a loving gesture. Sometimes, it brought tears to my eyes. It did this for a number of reasons: the fact that she did it, the fact that I didn’t have to do it, the fact that there was now evidence sitting on my kitchen counter demonstrating how very much I am loved by someone, the fact that I used to have a man that loved me that did that that I no longer have and sometimes fear that I never will again...
Ok wiping the tears away, I will continue...
So the fucking pot broke and this launched me into major Amazon shopping research binge...what did I want, what was out there, did I want to go with the same old thing or did I want something new? It took me 12 days...
Now some of you will think “of course, 12 days is reasonable.” To those that know me, they will think “uh oh, 12 days! What the fuck is wrong with her?” This would be because I am a decider. I make decisions, quickly and move on. I do not waffle or worry, I just do it and move the fuck on. Except over tiny little decisions like what type of coffee pot to buy...that can spin me out for a month or more. Tiny, minute decisions that don’t really even matter...except to me and in the end, not even really to me.
At first, I was thinking “GO BIG!” It is time for a cappuccino, espresso making titan that takes up the whole fucking counter...then I was like...
Who are you kidding...no one is at your house to have coffee and you are never still long enough to go through all that bullshit.
Then, I entertained the idea that perhaps I would go smaller - the individualist type coffee machine...Keurig or Nepresso. There were things that I liked about them. Mostly that I was only making coffee for me, and these machines supported my efforts on the single woman front. And hey, sometimes I could really use the fucking support.
I researched and looked and put about 40 different machines into my Amazon cart. Seriously, I did. I read the reviews and the answered questions.
Then I stalled out...I could not move it forward. I was stuck.
So being a creature of habit, I found the exact same machine that had just crapped out. I had it for a long time, it was steady, reliable and had staying power. I put that machine in my cart and was about to hit “purchase” but could not shake my gut reaction that this coffee pot no longer felt like it fit me. For some fucked up reason only those who love me will understand, I realized that I had outgrown this coffee pot. The kind of coffee pot that made coffee for twelve, not one.
I don’t think that I was ready to face this ugly truth quite yet so I did what I usually do...ignored the problem and bought instant Starbucks Vanilla latte packets to tide me over.
That worked so well that I thought, fuck it, I don’t need a coffee pot I will just do this instead. But the attendant mess on my counter from early morning stirring, coupled with the jarring microwave rumbling before it was even light outside, proved too much for my fragile early morning mental state and I abandoned my quick fix...
Back to the bar...(coffee bar that is).
My day to day life became consumed with other things...I got swept away with sick children, household construction projects, end of the school year tasks, work drama...and the coffee pot issue was timing out in my Amazon cart.
I briefly considered a french press but that quickly got pushed aside because who am I fucking kidding...I am not that cool and I am never going to be.
Finally, late one night, after the day was done, children and dogs were in bed and I was alone with tinder men and Amazon or Netflix as is my nightly routine...I accepted that it was time to be done with the coffee drama and free up the space it was taking in my brain.
I went back to Amazon, said fuck Nepresso (I find the names of their unpronounceable pods annoying) and settled on a Keurig. Which kind of made me feel like I was buying a Prius. It was late, I was unsupervised and not having coffee in the morning when I write is kind of like taking a smoke break and not smoking...After more handwringing and review perusal, I ultimately selected one because of the color (gunmetal grey), coffee issue solved.
I said good night to the tinder men and booted up Netflix and promptly fell asleep.
My new coffee commitment arrive within two days. I let it sit on my porch for another day and then on the floor of my kitchen for yet another. Why? I was afraid of what I had done. This new entity was going to reign supreme over my morning routine...and, in truth, I was not ready.
Finally, with great trepidation, I accepted my new reality and opened the fucking box, unpacked my new dawn sovereign and began reading up on how I was to perform my new subservient tasks required by my new morning overlord to get my morning mana...hot, strong coffee.
And so it began, tentative at first. The first few mornings I felt guilty like I was cheating on the old coffee pot...I could almost see it’s ghost hovering just next to the new one. One particularly delusional morning, I thought that I actually heard the old gal grinding beans in its pre-dawn ritual. But, alas, it was just the dog that sleeps under my bed snoring...loudly.
But like anything new, I got used to it and quickly adjusted my morning to its quirks and idiosyncrasies. I accommodated my new daybreak despot with both interest and wariness much like any corporate staff sniffs out the new executive.
So I sit here now pretty pleased with my keurignation. I can place my ember mug right underneath the spout and hot coffee filters out in short order into the waiting cup that shall keep it at a lovely 120 degrees until I am done drinking it. I am released from the shackles of my former pot - there is no cleaning or grinding or filling on the daily. I now have an extra five minutes in my day that I can spend doing pretty much anything else! My children love it and have used their own money to buy Swiss Miss hot chocolate. They even get to drink it without me yelling at them for making a mess all over the counter. My Keurig God is a benevolent ruler after all. It has brought peace in a house full of chaos and discord. I won’t call it harmony because now the children fight over whose hot chocolate box full of little cups is whose. But I don’t care because I am using my extra five minutes a day to ignore them and instead write ridiculous shit like this.
I am sure some of you are wondering, "Why the Keurig? After all of that, why that one?" It is simple...the name Keurig means “neat” in Dutch. And I am for anything that makes my life neater. In many ways, it is all I have ever wanted - order and a hot cup of joe.
