The other night I couldn't sleep so I got up to read my Bible. It was around 3:30 a.m. I was just finishing the book of Jeremiah which is basically a journal of grief, written during a time of tragedy and suffering - not light reading, by any definition. Every time I read Jeremiah, my heart breaks with empathy over his suffering and loss. But nevermore so, as he was forced to watch his beloved cities burn and his friends killed or carried off to exile for doing as they dang well pleased instead of obeying God.
Suddenly, I became aware of a hissing noise coming from the kitchen.
I nervously tip-toed into the kitchen only to discover copious amounts of dark brown liquid flowing out of the coffeemaker onto the counter. [It's important to understand that I know NOTHING of the inner workings of Mr. Coffee. Nada. Zilch. I am a tea sipper and have always relinquished all things coffee to the Dickman.] All I knew is that the coffee timer usually set for 5:30 am had somehow triggered at 4:30 am, causing coffee to drip onto my kitchen floor while Dickman was snoring. I quickly unplugged Mr. Coffee and began sopping up the huge mess with paper towels, saying ugly words under my breath about coffee drinkers in general and the Dickman in particular because surely somehow this was his fault.
As a medical professional, I quickly surmised that Mr. Coffee was irreparably broken and also that it was time for me to go back to bed. So, I took a yellow sticky note and wrote in big, block letters: “I AM BROKEN”. I stuck it on the coffee pot as a warning and an epitath.
The next day, I was loading dishes into the dishwasher and noticed a coffee filter holder thingy in the bottom tray, right where I had put it the day before. I fleetingly wondered if this might be an integral part to the performance of Mr. Coffee but then I closed the door because the smell of tuna was emanating obnoxiously from the top shelf.
Later that day, my Dickman marched through the door proudly holding a shiny new Mr. Coffee to replace his “broken one”.
Only then did I remember the coffee filter thingy patiently awaiting the Wash Cycle...
“Uh... can I ask you something?” I asked while casually opening the dishwasher. "Is this important? Like, if you tried to make coffee without it might there be, say... leakage??”
Dickman gave me The Look that I have come to know well over the past 4 or 5 decades. It's The Look that says: "For-the-love-of-everything-holy-are-you-trying-to-make-me-lose-my-mind?"
He cleared his throat and replied in a nice – but shaky – voice. “Yes. It. Is. Important. What. Is. It. Doing. In. The. Dishwasher?”
“Well, I found it in the sink and it looked dirty. I forgot until I saw it today and meant to tell you but I didn't because the 'Rona is making my brain leak into my fat cells which not only causes me to gain weight in weird places but also means you can no longer count on me to be a responsible adult.”
My son who had walked in earlier, realized what had happened and began to chuckle. I mean, I think it was a chuckle but it easily could have been nervous laughter due to the realization that he is literally months away from dealing with senile parent(s). Plural. If I'm going senile, the Dickman is going with me because I take that for better or worse crap seriously.
Anyhoo... if I were able to better manage my brain cells or had the energy to look deeper into this story, I might could find some corollary existential meaning behind things not working right if any parts are missing or how important it is to communicate clearly and also pre-wash dishes before loading the dishwasher. Or maybe, even deeper, something to do with Jeremiah warning all the Jews to quit worshiping idols and return to God or they would be poured out of the Promised Land into Babylonian exile like so much wasted coffee...
But seriously, who knows what anything means anymore?
The Good News is that one of us sleeps better at night knowing there's a Brand New Mr. Coffee just waiting in the wings. The other one of us is stuck in Lamentations...
