My coffeemaker died the other day. Now before you tell me that it’s no big deal, let me add this: My coffeemaker died on the same exact day I woke up with a headache from drinking port wine the night before. And when I say “headache,” what I really mean is an entire high school marching band had morphed into tiny little drummers and were playing very long solos inside my head.
And yes, before you ask, I do think my coffeemaker hated me. No coffeemaker that actually liked me would have chosen that exact day to die.
In any event, this was obviously an emergency. I mean, nobody can spend an entire day without coffee. And it was very apparent that only a coffee IV and a vat of aspirin would get rid of the tiny drummers – who were very annoying to say the least.
(Before we move on, you should know the tiny drummers were not in my head because I had imbibed too much port – it was because, despite the fact that I only had two tiny glasses of port and nothing else alcohol-wise, port always brings on the drummers. And a lack of my favorite addiction – coffee – wasn’t helping matters.)
So I dragged Harry out of bed. I don’t know why it was so important that he go to Costco with me to buy a coffeemaker. Maybe it was the drummers’ influence – those guys can be real jerks when they are marching around my brain.
And those idiot drummers were really messing with my head. During the drive, it felt like my brain had shrunk to the size of a walnut. Every time Harry turned the car, my brain and the drummers went “wham!” By the time we got to Costco I was begging for a Starbucks stop. Or at the very least, a sledgehammer.
Sadly, at Costco we were immediately separated despite the urgency of our mission. I headed to the coffeemakers, while Harry made a stop near the guy selling smokers. As I stared longingly at the coffee machines – hoping that one of them would leap out, plug itself in and then give me a cup of the nectar of life – Harry was talking to the smoker salesperson about smoking pizzas.
Please. I did not run out of the house with my hair in a nest, wearing sweats and glasses so Harry could compare smoking methods. I was there for caffeine.
Just as I was about to dissolve in a puddle of caffeine-deprived goo, Harry ambled over to the coffeemaker aisle pushing a cart loaded with smoking pellets and, inexplicably, the world’s largest bottle of tequila. He then proceeded to argue with the drummers and me over which coffeemaker to purchase.
I swear to you, if I did not love that man, bad things would have happened at that point.
Finally we ended up with the coffeemaker I wanted (let’s be honest here; it’s just easier for all concerned if I get my way). And then we decided to get a couple of other things. Like large slabs of meat that could feed an army. For our last stop we proceeded to the toilet paper section – which caused another discussion between Harry, the drummers and me. I wanted the cushy tushy paper, while Harry refused to pay $4 extra for it. Seriously? The man is standing next to a cart with a three-foot-tall bottle of tequila in it and he won’t pay for soft TP?
Yeah. That’s when the drummers kind of went insane in my brain. I will spare you the details – but let me just assure you that my toilet paper is very, very cushy.
Of course, once we went back to the car we realized the error of our ways. Harry’s car is tiny. The stuff we had purchased was large. Now to my mind, there was a clear solution. I would leave Harry behind and the coffeemaker and I would go home and get acquainted while I sent Junior out to pick up his dad. Perfect, right?
Yeah, no. And that’s why I rode home with both a coffee maker and a three-foot-tall bottle of tequila on my lap. But it didn’t matter. What did matter was that I got home, opened that new coffee machine up and got a cup of caffeine into me that drove away the little drummers. Bliss, I’m telling you. Pure bliss.
