Thursday night. 6:38 PM. Near tragedy.
We had company for dinner, and had just finished eating spaghetti, made with the last jar of my homemade salsa. And when I say last jar, I mean for eternity, because although that salsa leads to a great spaghetti sauce, there is far too much chopping involved to ever do it again. Canning is enough work without mincing 5,384 pounds of peppers, onions and tomatoes.
Spike put the coffee pot on and went to check the score. (Of what? I don't know. There's always a score to check.)
A few minutes later, I wandered through the kitchen to pour coffee for all of us. But there was nothing there. The light was on, but no one was home. I slapped it gently, called its name ... nothing. I asked Spike if he had remembered to actually put water INTO the coffee pot. He paused and said he was pretty sure he had, and our company confirmed that all the necessary steps had been taken to make the perfect pot of coffee. They had seen him do it with their own eyes.
And yet - the coffee grounds in the filter were dry. No gurgling sounds of water heating up. No trickle of java dripped into the carafe.
A small moment of panic, mixed with thankfulness that this was suppertime and not first thing in the morning. Imagine this happening first thing in the morning! Me, bleary-eyed in my jammies, staring bewildered at a coffee pot with no coffee, then looking around in confusion - "Am I being punk'd? Because it's not funny...."
Finally, we pulled out the paddles, slapped them on the little machine, someone hollered, "CLEAR!" and it jolted back to life. Joy.
Tragedy averted.
(but I'm keeping my eye out for a shiny new one ... shhh ... don't tell!)
