TheBanyanTree: Old Friends

[Dee Churchill]

Few people give coffee makers a harder workout than I do. There's one going
all the time, unless I'm sound asleep. If I had a tendency to sleepwalk, I
reckon the pot would be on 24/7.
 
No, coffee doesn't keep me awake. I have a huge caffeine tolerance. By now,
I'm sure my innards are stained a fine shade of French Roast and my white
corpuscles look like they've had an expensive salon tan.
 
Still, it's a shock to me when one of my coffee makers wears out and dies.
"How can that be?" I wail. "It worked fine just one pot ago." But that's
what happened today. The pump in my home coffee maker is kaput. Finis.
Deader than a week-old soufflé. I put the grounds in the basket and the
water in the reservoir and punched the On button. And the coffee maker just
sat there. Quietly. Doing nothing.
 
The backup coffee maker is, of course, at the shop, backing up the other
coffee maker that works just fine. I'm in my day-off grubbies, March is
coming in like a very wet lion outside and I do not want to go to town. What
to do? What to do?
 
I could haul out the Melitta thingie that sits on top of the pot and you
pour boiling water through...and wait and wait and wait as it trickles
through the grounds. <sigh> Or I could even revert to good old-fashioned
camp coffee, where you just throw the grounds in a pot of water. But wait!
 
I suddenly remembered that in the garage, on a shelf, cold and lonely, there
sits my ancient stainless steel electric percolator, which I haven't used in
more than 10 years!
 
It doesn't take long to haul it out and clean it up. Stainless steel cleans
up purty when you get the dust of centuries off it. I can even read the
nameplate: Farberware. Super Fast. Fully Automatic. Okay. The "super fast"
designation is probably a case of blatant false advertising but speed is
relative. It may well be super fast when compared to frozen molasses and
aging turtles. I'm not complaining.
 
Coffee pots have quite distinct personalities, have you noticed? Each one
has its own voice as the coffee brews and each one has its own agenda about
how long it takes to do the brewing. Almost instantly, the little Farberware
was going, "Chugga, chugga, chugga," letting me know it was eager for action
after its long vacation. I glanced at the time (12:15 p.m.) and went on
about my bidness, figuring I'd have fresh coffee in 20 minutes or so. 
 
Then I noticed the sound was changing. In between the chugga-chuggas there
was now a chortling growl. "Chugga, rowwlllfff, chugga, rowwlllfff..." Then,
just as it built to a peak of urgency...abrupt silence!
 
I looked at the clock. Only 12:20 p.m. Five minutes? The coffee can't be
done in five minutes. Good grief, has the percolator died, too?
 
Breath held, I tilted the pot over my cup and poured. Beautiful, rich dark
liquid streamed into the cup, fragrance billowing up. Well I'll be. It IS
super fast!
 
As I sit and sip the results of my shiny percolator's enthusiastic toil, I
recall why I saved the little guy instead of passing him along to someone
else. Even though I had faithlessly followed the allure of the coffee maker,
the percolator waited patiently, loyally, ready to serve me once again when
its glitzier competitors had wiffled out.
 
Kind of like old, dear friends who are always there when you need them.
That's a nice thing to know.
 
Hugs, Dee...