I’m in the kitchen, not quite sure how I got here. I do know I need to begin the brewing of the Elixir of Knowledge.
You from sunnier, more temperate climes may think this infatuation with coffee drinking bizarre.
Those of us from the lands of long dark nights and longer cold see it differently.
Medicinally, it gives us the strength to wait the 8 months of winter for our brief bit of summer.
(Summer this last year was incredible. Warm, soft breezes. Blue sky. Beautiful lakes.
It came on a Wednesday. Just a beautiful day.)
Clinically, it keeps us rational and sane enough so we won’t eat our young.
I turn on a little bitty light that gives a “15-minutes before dawn” look to the kitchen. Still on autopilot, I get out the coffee.
Shuffling over to the big, black art deco coffee maker, I grope around until finding the black looping handle on the front. I tug on it, swinging out the black-plastic-hinged unit containing the pouring channel and coffee basket. All black plastic.
I dump the Elixir’s seed dust into the micro-screened basket.
Well, most of it.
Where’s that Brita jug? There.
I begin to pour, the sound of water rushing toward brewing gently awakens my taste buds. Something else is awakening, but a lot faster. It’s my left foot. It’s cold and really wet.
I stop pouring, trying to tie together the concepts of pouring and wet feet.
I reach over and turn on the overhead light. Too late I think about turning on electricity while standing in water.
Huh.
Ducked a bullet on that one.
Standing in full light, I realize my mistake. I had been pouring the water through the black plastic loop in the handle. I was just about ¾ of an inch from hitting the black plastic pour channel and actually getting water into the black plastic coffee maker.
In the back of my mind I hear Agent Maxwell Smart’s nasally voice.
Missed it by this much.
The coffee is yet to be done, I have wet feet and a big welt on my forehead. I bounced off the drawer knob while bending down to soak up the lake.
You’re smart. Draw an analogy about something.
I’m goin’ back to bed.