HOW TO GET GOOD COFFEE [R, 12-7-17]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…

 I’m drinking really bad coffee this morning. I’d complain about it, but I have no right to. I’m the one who made it. I like to blame others for my mistakes, but the best I can do in this instance is blaming the people who made the coffee machine.

I did not get the pot centered correctly. Thus all the flavorful parts of the coffee leaked out onto the kitchen counter as it “perked.” I was left with dark water to drink. I’m too parsimonious to perk another batch. Besides, I also believe in punishment for mistakes. Maybe I’ll learn via my punishment and get the durn pot centered correctly next time. So I drink this awful stuff and feel sorry for myself and self-righteous at the same time.

Still, the coffee machine manufacturers should have made the machine in such a way that it would not even try until the pot was centered correctly. They should have anticipated that old men-dazed by sleep and December darkness and dirty dishes they didn’t get done the night before-would not get the pot centered. So I’m going to blame them. The only alternative is to threaten to kill my roommate, and I don’t want to do that.

For one thing, if I did threaten to kill my roommate, it might give her too many ideas. Also, it doesn’t make much sense, since she was not involved in the coffee fiasco. That did not keep my father from threatening to kill his roommate in the nursing home, though.

That was not directly over coffee, although my father was always out of sorts over the nursing home coffee. He loved coffee, and that stuff they served there was truly awful.

For whatever reason, he told the nurse he was going to kill the roommate. She, of course, was required to tell the social worker. She, of course, was required to tell the administrator. He, of course, was required to send Daddy to the psychiatrist, and to call me to say he was doing it and why.

So, that night, I called my father to see how it had gone. “Oh, it was great,” he said. “Afterward, the social worker and I went out to Bob Evans for biscuits and gravy. And the shrink was great. We had a good time. I told him stories, and he told me stories. He said to come back any time I wanted. The best thing, though, was the coffee. The shrink had really good coffee. I think maybe I’ll kill the bastard again next week.”

At least, when I’m in “the home,” I’ll know how to get a good cup of coffee.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet occasionally as yooper1721.

I used to keep a careful index of topics and stories so that I would not bore readers with repeats. But that became cumbersome, and since this blog is primarily for folks in the winter of their years, I figure they won’t be able to remember if they’ve heard it before, anyway.