The Percolation Paradox

Coffee, and our dependence on it, has a major flaw. You have to make it. Before you’ve had your first cup of coffee.

For most people, functioning before they have had that first dose of the nectar of the gods is a struggle. And that’s on a good day. Some days, it is a miracle that one can navigate the few steps it takes to get to the kitchen without seriously injuring themselves. How is it, then, that one can be expected to properly brew that mug full of perfection when the brain is performing at sub-optimal levels?

This morning, thanks to my wonderfully lazy coworkers (who apparently don’t know either how to make the coffee, or that they are supposed to start a new pot when they finish the last one), I was tasked with making an entire pot shortly after arriving at work. In a haze, I removed the filter holder and was somehow lucid enough to find a filter that wasn’t half-cut down one side. I placed it in the filter holder. I removed the pressure straw, or whatever the piece is called that actually pumps the coffee from the urn, and placed the pot under the percolator. I then replaced the filter holder. It was at the moment I was about to hit the “Start” button (suck on that, Windows 8!) that I realized one minor step. The coffee itself. That was a close one. Perhaps I should take a lesson from my 3-year-old, who, thanks to educational shows on the telly, does everything in three special steps. And those steps are repeated aloud before starting any procedure. Maybe I will adopt this behavior, myself.

Sure, there are any number of gadgets designed to help with this issue. There are coffee machines which require little more than adding some water and a small prefilled cup and the press of a button. Some people are as advanced as having machines which can be prepared the night before, when the brain is fully functioning, with some sort of magical clock that brews the coffee at the precise time it will be needed in the morning.Either of these devices would require one of two sets of circumstances:

1. Not being at work, where we possess no such devices
2. Owning one of these devices myself and getting up early enough to procure said easily brewed demitasse. And we all know that isn’t going to happen.

Yes, I have heard of such contraptions. While appearing to be an extraordinary invention on the surface, there is something…devious in allowing a device to be in control of one’s lifeblood. This is how the machines will take over.