7:07 p.m. - 2006-10-11

Coffee Companion

Coffee is a basic food group in our house - or leading beverage anyway. A couple of years ago our Mr. Coffee died and we thought we would take the opportunity to try a coffee maker with a carafe instead of glass pot on burner. I hate coffee that�s been sitting for too long, AND on a burner � bleckkkk! Love the carafe style coffee!!

Customarily it�s my job to set up the coffee for our daily consumption. Last Saturday morning was no exception. I set the pot up, turned it �on� and walked off to attend to some other Saturday morning leisure matter.

A few minutes later my father-in-law (still with us after a week) calls me to the kitchen to tell me that the coffee pot is flowing all over the counter. I run like the dickens � don�t want to lose any precious morning elixir � to find that in fact our carafe was acting like it was full and pouring itself ungraciously all over our kitchen counter.

I stopped the process, shook the carafe to find it only half full. I placed said alembic back into its preferred system and it seemed to run smoothly for a while. Then it stopped again.

Upon tasting my first draft I found it to be weak and tasteless. My husband agreed and we tried for a second pot. This pot came a little easier, but something was definitely not right with our brewing machine.

That evening I looked more closely at the arrangement, and began to take little bits a part. There was nothing wrong with the filter � that I could see. Nothing wrong with the basket that the filter sits in � that I could see. Which only left the lid stopper of the carafe. I took it out and tried to run water through it. Something seemed to be stuck in the top. I figured that it must be a collection of coffee grounds that had found their way around the filter and basket so I turned the stopper upside down and - - - thwappp - - - knocked it against my palm.

Nothing.

Thwapp �. Thwappp �.. nothing.

One more solid THWAPPP against my hand, and out popped the offending barrier.

I was so startled I jumped and dropped the hindrance into the sink. You�d never guess what it was that caused all my caffeine frustration.

Some how, some when, some way a medium size flying insect had made a detour into it own death trap � the topper of our carafe. I could not guess at what species it was � possibly wasp or flying ant. It had been washed over by coffee enough that it only looked like a very oddly shaped coffee bean � with wings and antenna � a dark dark black/brown.

Thankfully it did not turn me off of coffee. It only managed to make me think twice about tasting my first cup the next morning.