The Mr. Coffee Pod Killer

11/28/2024 – I was planning on driving north a couple of hours to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends. Unfortunately, a forecast of 5″ of snowfall local to their area, and the prospects of driving home late at night on bad roads, caused me to cancel. So I am home, turkey bird-less, watching an unexpected snowfall, just beyond my window.

I am entertaining myself playing Amazon roulette. That’s when I fill up my shopping cart with every imaginable product, including tools and truck accessories I could ever want, click the checkout button, and let my finger hover over the “Place your order” button with a potential $36,427 consequence, just before caving and transferring all to “Save for later”. I do buy some things.

I have been a Keurig pod coffee maker customer since approximately 2005… 6? I do not know the origins of the product’s very Swiss or German appearing name, as the founders, John Sylvan and Peter Dragone, met at Colby College, Maine, in the late 1970s. Their first product, slated for commercial food service applications, was introduced in 1998. The familiar home use product was added in 2004. Apparently, it is the Häagen-Dazs of coffee makers

While the Keurig can pump coffee like $2 a gallon gas, unfortunately, I have had high blood pressure and arteriosclerosis since… shortly after birth. Yes, coffee does tastes great, even if it does cause hypertension, dehydration, and supplies lots of oily lipids that boost bad cholesterol. Hey, life is rife with tradeoffs.

So it has been pop a pod into the coffee maker, wait ten seconds, and the aroma of dark roasted coffee fills the air. A pod or two for breakfast, a pod or two mid morning to fend off the cold, a pod or two after lunch. A pod or two for an afternoon break. A pod or two after dinner. A pod or two while stressing over the evening news. Yes, cumulatively, Yikes!

Tapping fingers, an inability to sit in one spot, a kaleidoscope like thought process suggested I needed to cut down, but how? I lack discipline, so I have to trick myself, mostly playing to my weaknesses. Traits like impatience and laziness can be forged into powerful prime drivers.

So I relegated the Keurig to the “Just in case, but will never use”, basement appliance shelf and purchased a Mr. Coffee, 1-5 cup coffee maker. Gees, it is a lot of work! 1-5 cups apparently means 2 Giants cups. Giants as in the absolutely terrible football team, not the capacity of the cup.

For every two cups of coffee, fill the tank, scoop 6 tablespoons of coffee out of a bag my hand won’t fit in and dump it into a filter. Move the coffee maker’s spray bar over a charcoal filter, close the lid, hit the brew button, and then wait 10 minutes for the coffee to be brewed. That’s not the end of it.

After consuming the coffee, I have to wash out the cup and the carafe. I have to dump the filter and grounds… wait, I need to take a breather. Okay… then I have to wash out the filter holder, rinse the charcoal filter, and then prep all over again. It’s exhausting. So I am down to 4 cups per day, split between after breakfast and after dinner. Although, the after dinner service is tenuous at best.

Buying gifts for a coffee pot

First, it needed coffee, like Audrey Jr. in Little Shop of Horrors. Five bags of a variety of dark coffee quenched its thirst. Then it wanted paper filters, as the permanent filter rinsed too many grounds down the sink. Then it insisted on a rustic container to hold the filters so they wouldn’t end up on the floor. I am currently awaiting 5 air sealed glass canisters to hold the coffee, while awaiting the heavy stainless 2 tablespoon measure…. I had to buy.

You play Amazon Roulette and sometimes you lose. Well, back to my Thanksgiving NY Giants, with a bottle of water.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and all of yours!

Joe