This Is All Somehow Joe's Fault

When Joe and I moved in together two years ago, he mentioned that the only thing of mine that he didn’t like was my old, rusted, white coffee maker. I didn’t take offense since I’d had this coffee maker for years and probably did need a new one. The ice was then broken and I felt like I could fairly pick one thing of his to get rid of. It was an arrangement of RED and PURPLE silk tulips in some kind of an urn (a gift, no doubt) that sat on the dining room table. This thing was bigger and taller than a medium-sized child and matched nothing in the house. Things worked out in my favor though, because the tulips went up into the attic, and he bought me a new coffee maker.

Joe will drive across town to save a quarter on a can of tuna fish, but he does not skimp in the gift department. He researched and shopped around and surprised me with the most magnificent coffee maker I ever did see. It was a Melitta and it actually ground the beans inside the machine with little mess and made a great cup of coffee. The only problem was that there was a design flaw, and a vital part of it broke several months ago. It was still operable, but not really, and I was bothered by the unsightly black Velcro that was holding the thing together.

Last week I decided that I’d just go ahead and buy a new machine, because I can rationalize spending a lot of money on absolute necessities i.e. food, shelter, electricity, and coffee. I knew I had to have a machine that ground the beans inside, because once you have known this sort of Heaven, there’s no turning back. All Melitta products were immediately ruled out, and the only thing left was this way complicated Cuisinart model. It makes an even better cup of coffee, and it’s totally worth cleaning all 16 removable parts each night. It even makes up for me having to take a small electronics operating class at the local community college on Tuesday and Thursday nights to learn how to use it properly.