Coffee conundrum

 The saddest part of this story is that it happened yesterday and I didn't even have the built in excuse of, "oh, that's Monday." 

Yesterday I attempted to make coffee, something I do almost daily (though I confess to drinking my fair share of leftover coffee from the day before. I'm a mom. As long as it's hot, I don't care. That's why I often find my mug in the microwave, which has been beeping patiently at me, reminding me that my coffee is in there!)

First, I needed to reassemble my drip coffee maker with its grinder. No big deal, it's about six pieces in total. I slide the barrel into place that holds the filter and the bottom half of the grinder up top. I reach for my bag of beans from our local coffeeshop (which is excellent, by the way) and dump a spoonful into the barrel. 

"Waitaminute," I muse to myself. "I've done that before." When one attempts to grind coffee beans without a filter, one's kitchen is scented and sprayed with the delightful aroma and unbelievable mess of fine coffee grounds. Been there, done that, much to the kids' delighted mirth. They feel the same way about the story of my Pap Pap making popcorn on the stove but forgetting the lid, something none of us were alive for but a story we all find hilarious because my Pap Pap was just about the most organized and process-oriented man alive.

I dump the beans back out, add the all-important paper filter (I prefer the brown ones. I don't need bleached paper that's just going to turn brown anyway. Seems silly to me. Plus, they're cuter, like brown eggs and black sheep. I digress.) Then I poured the beans back into the exact same but now filter-lined spot. 

"Waitaminute," I sighed to myself. "Those are beans. They need ground first." Removing the beans again and redepositing them into the grinder where they belong, I try to make coffee for the third time. 

I finally get all the pieces assembled and pour in the rest of the beans and the water. I turn the thing on and ponder, "what does it mean when you need coffee in order to simply make coffee?"