Laurie, Fudge, and Vern say Just Say No to Coffee and Impatient People will be Happier!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Lately, I have found that I am becoming increasingly resentful of a kitchen appliance and the drink that it produces.

 

For years now, I have had a love/hate relationship with coffee. Mostly, I hate coffee, but love some people who drink the stuff.   In my lifetime, I have known many coffee drinkers and actually was raised by two pros. I spent my formative years watching my dad and mom sip cup after cup of coffee.  There is no beverage that I drink that I could ever imagine having three or more cups at a time and I have no desire to have a steaming cup of anything in 90-degree weather.  My main beef with coffee is it takes too long to drink. I feel like my life is passing before my eyes as the person with me savors every last drippy drop.  I have always been an impatient person and good at multi-tasking and have thought about patenting a coffee maker/toilet paper dispenser for the bathroom, so my husband, and others like him, could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.  I also don’t want to be behind the person in line ordering a coffee drink that involves steaming milk, dotted cinnamon, or whipped cream.  By the time it takes to make that drink, I could birth a baby.

 

I should probably be in therapy for my coffee aversion problem and I can tell you it dates back to dinners out with my family.  My family went out to dinner every Friday night when I was younger. I was a tomboy and usually allotted 5 minutes per meal, and that included all drinks, before I had to get back outside to play, so dinner out at a restaurant, even with just a regular meal seemed long and arduous.  Combine this with parents who thought no meal was over until coffee was served and you have one unhappy tomboy. Every week I was hopeful that they would forget about the coffee, but just when I thought I might be safe that waitress would swing by and tempt them with a pot of coffee and sure enough, they would succumb.  She never seemed to notice my murderous glances in her direction and a couple of times when she asked me if she could get me something, I thought about answering, “Yes, parents that don’t drink coffee,” but I never did.

 

To this day, my mom has a panic attack if she takes one sip of her coffee and no one comes immediately by to replenish her cup. You could be telling her you just had the most amazing life experience and she will look up and say, “Where is that waitress? My coffee is getting cold. I hope she can brew me a new pot.” I have asked her before why she just doesn’t bring her own thermos, but usually at this point in the conversation she is yelling, “Yoo Hoo!” to nobody in particular and swinging her coffee cup high up in the air.  When she starts doing this, it has always been my policy to excuse myself and go to the restroom and start popping Tylenol.

 

This addiction runs in the family, because my two sisters love their coffee. When I drove home to Indiana with two friends, my middle sister, and my daughter for my other daughter’s wedding shower, before the trip even started, my sister told me that she loves to stop for coffee along the Turnpike.  I explained to her that this was going to be a different kind of trip…the kind of trip where I drive like a NASCAR driver so we can get home in 9 hours and the person up front yells “mommy” a lot when I am switching lanes.  When she said again, “Will we be stopping for coffee?” it quickly became clear to me that she was going to be my weak link in the 9 hour plan and I realized I either had to “accidentally” leave her at the first rest stop sipping her Starbucks coffee or try to enlist the other three passenger’s help in a game of “Pin the Depends” on my sister. Luckily, she complied with the driver’s rules and despite her screaming “I need caffeine NOW!” as we drove by rest stop after rest stop, and one minor incident where we think we saw her hold up a sign to the car next to us that read, “I am being held against my will. Please call a coffee Barista!” we all survived.

 

As fate sometimes does, it played a dirty trick on me.  I married a non-coffee drinker who became a diehard coffee drinker.   I am so mad I did not think to put “forsaking all coffee drinks, until death do us part” in our vows and because of that one oversight, my DoodleKisses time is being infringed upon daily.  Every day, I make my husband’s coffee. Call me an enabler, if you will, but if I didn’t do this chore, I would be writing a blog about how messy coffee drinkers can be when making their own coffee. We used to have a Mr. Coffee machine that I could set up in no time in the morning for the next day’s brew. Unfortunately, that was not good enough for Juan Valdez and now we have a combination bean grinder/coffee machine that takes three times the amount of work as the old Mr. Coffee.  The beans have to be mixed half decaf and half regular, parts have to be meticulously washed every day, and the tight seal the lid forms on the heating carafe can only be broken by me if I am willing to start taking Human Growth Hormones.

 

 All this time making coffee is keeping me off DK in the mornings and I guess it has forced me to start taking short cuts.  Last week, I just threw some beans in the dispenser without measuring them, because I was in a hurry to see if the new caption contest had started, and later played dumb when my DH commented that he thought coffee was supposed to be a liquid, not a solid. This weekend, in search of a solution I purchased a Keurig coffee machine. I hate to cook, but I love appliances and this machine was fun. I can even make hot chocolate in it and it is so simple and quick, I expect some day to come out of my bedroom and find Vern and Fudge having a cup of Joe. With great anticipation, I made a cup for my husband and asked him if it was as good as his bean coffee maker. Sadly, he shook his head no, but said, “It’s not bad.” I feel this is a victory of sorts and somewhere there is a compromise brewing.

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

OMD Laurie that was FUNNY! I don't like the coffee addics either and I would never be an enabler! I say thatif Fudge & Vern can make their own so can DH doesn't he know that you might miss something on DK???