Fancy Coffee Maker Blues

Kitchen Aid: A Haiku 

You have but one job 

Make coffee in the morning 

Please don't fail me now

You see, I have a problem. I've become an addict. I'm officially one of many millions of people who cannot function in the morning without a cup of java to jumpstart the day.

Maybe I should revise that a tad - it's not a "problem," per se. It's a condition. I have no problem with drinking my yummy coffee every morning, slowly opening my eyes to the world before me, letting the aroma pique my senses. It's definitely more of a love affair than a problem.

The problem actually only comes when there is some impediment to me having my coffee in the morning. Put something between me & the cup o' joe, THEN we gonna tangle, Curly. Now, I've encountered few such hindrances... and the ones that did come my way, for the most part, weren't a big deal in the end. Like, for example, the power going out for 3 days because of Hurricane Isaac. Through that experience, I learned to make coffee on the stove - thank HEAVEN I have a gas stove. That might have been a very tragic situation otherwise...

But the one circumstance that nearly caused me to very abruptly and swiftly toss my fancy frickin' coffee maker out in front of an 18-wheeler was the morning I woke up, started the coffee, went about getting ready for work, and when I returned - no coffee.

Well, that's not fair. When I say "no" coffee, what I obviously mean is that there were 3 drips in the decanter. Three.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

When I say it's fancy, what I mean is that it's a VERY EXPENSIVE Kitchen Aid coffee maker. Stainless steel decanter, fully programmable, the works. I, of course, did not pay $100 for this $100 machine... I got it for free. But I was too excited when I did get it - brand new, mind you - because I just knew that it was going to be the most perfect thing ever.

On this particular morning, however, I could not, no matter how hard I tried, make the coffee maker take the rest of the water and make delicious coffee with it. I absolutely panicked. I tried unplugging it, plugging it back in, pressing and holding the power button, changing the settings, adding more water, unplugging it again... and on and on until it was 20 minutes past the time I should have left for work.

Then finally, when I plugged it in that last time and tried ONE LAST TIME to reset the thing and make it make my coffee, it wouldn't come on. At all. Blankness. The little LCD display would not light up, no fancy beeping. Nothing. It had died, and a little part of me did that day, too. I was screaming inside, "You have ONE JOB! Just do YOUR JOB! You are a coffee maker! All I need you to do is make the coffee! Pleeeaaaassssse!" But that was it. It was done.

So, I left it unplugged and went on to work, but that day was just no good.

The happy ending to this story is that the coffee maker did eventually come back to life. I don't know what happened that morning... what it could have been going through that it would just decide to completely shut down on me. I wish I could have understood better what it needed from me. But that's neither here nor there. The important thing now is that I respect the coffee maker. I need it to work for me, and every day I'm reciting the above little haiku like a mantra... like a prayer to the deities in charge of small appliances. "Please don't fail me now... I need you..."