Good to the Last Drop

BY TRACY BECKERMAN

As the only one in my family who drinks coffee, I often found myself making a whole pot of coffee in the morning and then throwing most of it out. Since I prefer not to waste money on anything except shoes, I finally decided to wise up and get one of those one-cup coffee makers.

I thought it would be fairly easy to find a replacement, but when I looked online, the options were dizzying. In the time since I had last purchased a coffee maker, the world had exploded with various types of coffee makers, from the ones that simply brewed a fine cup of coffee to ones that could make a double soy latte, serve you a fresh-baked chocolate croissant, wipe your mouth for you and then pick up the dry cleaning when you were done.

Although I had planned to get something simple, I was ultimately seduced by one of those sleek machines with, unfortunately, an equally sleek price. This coffee maker was not just any onecup coffee maker. This was an uber-coffee maker. It was the cream of the crop. This was one of those espresso-pod coffee makers that looked like it had been designed by an Italian race car company. It gleamed. It purred. And it brewed from 0 to 60 in less than a minute. All I had to do was fill the well with water, pop in a pod, and voila... a lovely cup of cafe awaits.

Really, how much easier could it be?

I bid my 10-cup coffee maker a fond farewell and stuck it up in the top of the closet with the panini press, the yogurt maker, the spiralizer and all the other things I had bought or were gifted to me that I never used but didn’t want to throw away on the off chance that 10 people would suddenly visit me who all wanted coffee with a panini, spiralized zucchini and a cup of yogurt on the side.

It could happen.

The morning after my new coffee maker arrived, I carefully read the directions, cleaned out the machine, and got down to business. I popped in my pod, filled up the water and started up the machine. I turned my back for a moment to check my email and then, when I heard the whooshing sound stop, I turned back to retrieve my coffee.

But there was no coffee. I stood for a minute wondering if I had actually made the coffee or just thought I did. Maybe after setting it up I’d gotten distracted and never hit the start button? It graph it safely -- please drop me a note at dennis@mammana.com and I’ll send you details about our exciting and fun group tour.

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I’ll be writing more about these great sky shows in a later article. Stay tuned!

Follow Dennis Mammana at facebook/dennismammana.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM made no sense. It smelled like coffee. It felt like there was coffee in the vicinity. I knew I’d heard the whooshing sound. But alas, there was no coffee.

While I stood there like an idiot trying to figure out what the heck happened, I noticed something drip off the edge of the counter. Then a steady stream of something poured off the counter. It finally dawned on me that the stuff pouring off the counter was my coffee and I had, in fact, made the coffee...

I just never put the cup under the machine to catch it.

Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble,” available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www. tracybeckerman.com.

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