A tale of 5 coffee makers

It was the best of grinds; it was the worst of grinds.  As I was packing up the deep recesses of our cabinets early this summer, in preparation for moving houses, I came upon a stash of coffee makers.  Somehow, over the years, we've accumulated a total of five of these.

I write "somehow", but the truth is that I know exactly how this stockpile of coffee appliances came about.   My favorite stores (that is, yard sales) are closed during the winter.   We had a bad experience a few years back when our coffee maker died during the winter -- requiring frantic trips to so-called-thrift-shops.   After that, whenever I'd come across an inexpensive coffee maker at a yard sale, I'd grab it "just in case".   I wanted to make sure we were never again stranded without an emergency back-up coffee maker.  And the way these things go, even without noticing it, I managed to become overly wealthy in coffee makers.

But we didn't want to move our entire wealth of coffee makers over to the new home.   We decided that having two coffee makers (a primary and an emergency back up) ought to hold us in good stead.  We picked our favorite two, based on the kind of filters we used, and hauled the other three out to the yard sale, to put the coffee makers back "in the cloud".

Coffee makers, anyone?  (See the lower left corner).

So here's an interesting phenomenon:  people don't really sell or buy coffee makers at yard sales much any more.   A few years ago, these babies used to be everywhere, and you could always find one for less than $5.  But this past July, our three were almost the only ones offered at the huge neighborhood yard sale, and nobody wanted them.  Even priced at 25¢ (or $1 for a bagful/armful), we had a terrible time finding any takers.   Someone told me this is the Keurig influence; I don't know.

At any rate, we managed to off-load two of our coffee makers at the yard sale, and delivered a third to a so-called-thrift shop.  And we moved our two favorite coffee makers to our new home.

And then a week later, the black coffee maker just stopped working.  We'd press the button, the light would come on, but the water wouldn't get hot or perk its way through.  Darn it.  Fortunately, we were prepared, and had our emergency back-up; the white coffee maker.

And then two days later, I came downstairs to see that my husband had written something on top of the coffee maker in sharpie. Since I'm the designated label-fanatic in the family, seeing him mark an object up meant that something serious was afoot.



And here's what my husband wrote:

"Water leaks out bottom".

Sheesh.  What this means is that the coffee maker still works, but we can't follow our usual routine of him setting up everything the night before, and me just pushing the button in the morning.  We have to wait to pour the water in until right before we make the coffee.  (The water doesn't leak out of the pot, just out of the reservoir, and it's not a super speedy leak, at least not yet).

So, we don't quite have a coffee maker emergency, but dang.  I'm traveling right now, so I can't go check out my favorite stores, and even when I get back I don't know if I'll be able to find a coffee maker in the cloud anymore (a pre-flight cursory check of a local so-called-thrift store didn't turn up any possibilities, either, and our local Craig's List has only Keurig models -- which lends some credence to the theory my yard-sale buddies told me).  I might just try the old "put out the word" method instead; I-daughter has already mentioned that she might have one she doesn't use.

Sigh.  From 5 coffee makers to a single semi-usable one, just like that.  No wonder I'd hoarded them over the years!   I don't know if I can use shoe-goo or some such glue to fix the white maker; that'd be pretty cool if I could.  It would buy me even more time to start building my coffee pot portfolio again, and to regain the wealth that we've squandered so recklessly.  It is a far, far better thing to brew.