If at First You Don't Succeed...

If I am watching someone, and whatever they are trying to do isn't working; I feel compelled to try it myself. Surely, it must be them.

Once again, it's Sunday morning. Tim shows up as usual, before the ingredients for whatever is for breakfast are out on the counter. (I find it kind of funny that he is never late when he knows food is involved, but any other time you end up waiting an additional ten minutes for him to appear.)

This particular morning, I had not even managed to get my kid out of bed, so I delegate the task of making the coffee. After about ten minutes, I return to the kitchen and Tim informs me that the coffee maker is screwed up, and it just started leaking all over the place. He is rinsing out the coffee pot and has placed paper towels over the spill he (thankfully) caught in time before the entire pot was on the counters and floor.

I start setting out the stuff for pancakes: griddle, mixing bowl, liquid measuring cup, dry measuring cup, wisk, wooden spoon, spatula, pancake mix, eggs, oil, milk...

"What the hell?", Tim says as coffee, once again, is leaking out of the small appliance and onto the counter. "Your coffee maker is totally whack. Look at this shit."

By nature, at this point, it is killing me not to take over. I take a step in his direction and he says, "Dude, I've got it covered," and he dumps yet a second pot of water and grains down the sink drain.

So to not give in to my compulsion to just take care of the coffee myself; I leave him to his task. I would really like a cup of coffee. This voice in the back of my head is telling me if this process had gone the way it's supposed to, I'd have a cup in my hand right now; along with the dismay of knowing I'm going to have to buy another coffee maker, because obviously--this one has seen better days.

Tim has now rinsed everything out, cleaned the counters (again), and is getting the first scoop of coffee, and moving towards the basket with it and he exclaims, "Well, shit. no wonder.", and he looks at me, grinning his ass off.

He opens the drawer and picks up the reusable filter-cone and shows it to me, and he says "They usually work better if you remember these".

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18 april 2002 - perotheus.com

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