R.I.P.: My Coffee Maker

Yes, it's silly to write a post about a deceased kitchen appliance, but my coffee maker and I have been through a lot together! I first bought it 11 years ago, right before my senior year of college, when the Three D Bed and Bath in the Farmington Valley Mall was going out of business. It was a floor model Braun coffee pot, priced for immediate sale at $9.99.

It came to my dorm room with me, and I started brewing coffee as soon as the year opened. I never brewed the full pot, since I had a single my senior year, but I felt really grown up. However, I tired of drinking coffee rather quickly, and started using it less and less.

It came home with me when I moved back into my parents' house after graduation. It stayed packed in a box for the three years I lived there and got no usage.

It came with me to my first apartment and got a lot of use whenever I had company. My best friend tried making coffee with it, but wasn't used to the coffee makers with the paper filters, just the wire mesh ones. It took him twenty minutes to figure out why the coffee wouldn't drip from the basket. I didn't use it as much for myself, since I wasn't a coffee drinker at the time.

It came with me to my condo, and has been with me ever since. It's gotten more use in the past six months, as I have had to rely on a good caffeine jolt in the morning. It has helped tremendously.

And then the carafe, which was the original one to the coffee pot, shattered one day. I forget the circumstances, but was really annoyed that I had to find a new one. My parents gave me their spare, which was a 12-cup and was two cups too big. I found one of those so-called "universal" carafes at Goodwill for three bucks, and it was guaranteed to fit any coffee maker.

It didn't fit mine. Well, it barely fit; I just had to squeeze it in a certain way to brew, and take it out a certain way to pour.

Finally, in July, I found a small five-cup carafe at Goodwill. Two dollars. I bought it, washed it, and started to use it. It did the trick nicely.

Then last week, something happened with the spout at the end of the basket. It wasn't letting the coffee drip down. It would let it drip down if I jiggled the basket a bit, but I also ran the risk of getting grounds in my coffee. Yuck!

I thought I would just put up with this until the coffee maker died, then a friend of mine at church asked me if I would be interested in taking her old coffee maker off her hands, since she can't drink coffee anymore for health reasons.

The timing could not have been better.

My new coffee maker's a Black and Decker Home Cafe, one of those pod versions, that brews one cup at a time with a pressurized system. It makes a decent cup of coffee; I found it a little weak at first, but it was still okay to drink.

I still have my old coffee maker, though. It's at the top of my refrigerator right now. Maybe there's still a pot or two left in the old Braun...maybe I'll give it another chance this weekend. And if it works, I'll keep it and use it for company.

It's a family tradition to keep coffee makers for years. Ours seem to have sentimental value; my parents can't seem to part with their old perculator, circa 1972, and only use it for when they have company...

ARRGH!!!! I'm turning into my parents!!! HELLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!