Why I am the Curly, Moe, and Larry of Domesticity

Okay. I have done this at least four or five times since I bought my latest coffee maker (which is the coffee maker with which I want to spend the rest of my life).

I got up this morning, pretty groggy. My routine is very unconscious and rote for the first 10 or so minutes of each morning because I'm simply not capable of much more than grunting until I've had my first cup of coffee.

So, here it is:

• Extract self from bed.


• Go to kitchen.


• Grind coffee beans while filling water reservoir of coffee maker with water and cleaning out old grounds from gold filter.


• Return to coffee maker and place water reservoir and clean gold filter into proper positions.


• Pour fresh grounds into gold filter.


• Press the "on" button.


• Rinse and place the nice stainless steel carafe in position.


• Go to bathroom and commence with face washing and teeth brushing.


• Return to kitchen to retrieve first cup of hot black Joe.

Easy, non?

The step I have conveniently marked up in boldface for you, as it turns out, is crucial.

Here's why.

If you neglect to complete this part of the entire procedure, you come back from the face washing and teeth brushing steps of your routine to a kitchen that's overrun with coffee. You will find that it's seeped all over the counter, sometimes onto the floor, and most unfortunately, into the small space between the counter and the refrigerator.

This is disappointing and annoying on many levels, especially since you've done this at least a few times before. First, there is no coffee for you. Second, it takes you at least five or ten minutes to get the kitchen cleaned up, what with the coffee everywhere. Finally, you have to make the coffee again, and wait for that first cup, thus depriving your junkie brain from caffeine for an additional and unnecessary five more minutes (for a total of ten extra minutes).

Note how artfully I've changed the perspective of the story.

Anyway, this is the kind of thing I do, and this is just one example. And I haven't even learned from experience. There is no voice inside me whispering, "don't forget to put the carafe in its place because, remember what happened last time?"

I'm domestically challenged. I ride the short bus of domesticity. When God was handing out domestic abilities, he skipped me. I lack the domesticity gene. I am messy and annoying to tidy and organized people.

At least what I lack in this area, I make up for in friends who are willing to help (see future essay on NJ) and no roommates.

So. You know. Whatever. Somehow, I manage.