All for a Cup O’Joe

“So how are you doing today?” asked my friend Karen through Facebook.

My answer: “Shaking my head at the new coffee maker Kay purchased. I feel like I have to be a scientist to get even a single cup out of it. I fear I’ll never get another cup of plain old Joe in this house again without major help. LOL.”

What my friend does not know is that I still have trouble with the electric can opener my wife bought two years ago. I have stopped using it because I’ve dropped several cans I thought were properly attached to the machine, leaving chip-marks in the counter top tile.

Kay says I don’t like the new coffee-maker because I don’t like change. That could very well be true – but what I really don’t like about change is making a simple process like brewing a pot of coffee into a difficult activity.

To me, brewing coffee one cup at a time isn’t a real achievement. I could do that using instant coffee.

The real achievement is being able to brew an entire pot of coffee in less than five-minutes. I like it that way because I can always return to the coffee maker and pour another cup and if need be, heat it up in the nuke-ro-wave.

Unfortunately, I look at this new fangled machine and I cannot help but think of Apollo 13 and how Houston had to redesign a power system to get the capsule up and operating. That’s because I’m afraid this latest coffee maker to enter our home uses more amps to pump out a single 8 ounce cup of coffee than the astronauts used to save themselves from a deep space death.

And it comes in four different languages and I cannot seem to find ‘English.’ Isn’t there supposed to be a ‘press the one button,’ in a situation like this?

Furthermore, I can’t seem to get the words to the Simon and Garfunkel song, “Mrs. Robinson,” and the last verse of the tune out of my head, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo). What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson, Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away (Hey, hey, hey…hey, hey, hey.)”

Yup, Joltin’ Joe, once the pitchman for ‘Mr. Coffee,’ is gone and so is the simplicity of making coffee in the morning. I can’t help but emit a heavy sigh.

This human was not designed for such frustration, so Houston — we have a problem.