Mr. Coffee laughs as mishaps get best of owner

I have just one enemy: Mr. Coffee.
Twice this past week, this pain-in-the-butt coffee machine has managed to humiliate me and upset me enough to make me want to smash it to smithereens.
Mr. Coffee is simple to use; that’s why I liked it – key word being “liked.” Some coffee machines are too complicated, and although they might make better coffee, Mr. Coffee had the advantage that an idiot like me could figure out how to use it, as it only has five buttons and two moving parts.
But that simplicity is devious, especially in the hands of an idiot, like me.
On Saturday, making a fresh pot of coffee to complement the omelet breakfast I was making, I was surprised to see a half-empty (half-full for the optimists) decanter after it was done dripping. I had put a full decanter in the water reservoir, so it should have made a full one.
Examining it, I removed the decanter from the machine, only to have coffee come pouring out of the brew basket, all over the counter. It made a coffee mess I wasn’t too happy about having to clean up.
Upon further examination, the brew basket got plugged because I did not put the coffee filter in it correctly. It had folded over and some of the coffee grounds spilled into the brew basket, plugging it. When I removed the decanter, those grounds became unplugged, unleashing a torrent of coffee.
Sunday night my wife asked me to set up Mr. Coffee so it could serve her a fresh cup in the morning. I was happy to oblige, because a fresh cup for her also means a fresh cup for me, and black coffee in the morning is the perfect way to jumpstart the day.
The delay brew is easy to use with Mr. Coffee. One just needs to hit the delay brew button after putting water in the reservoir and the filter and coffee grounds in the brew basket. As long as the clock and timer are set correctly, coffee should be ready in the morning at the time it’s requested to be made.
When my wife went to get a cup in the morning, she didn’t find any coffee. She woke me up and asked if I noticed anything weird about the machine.
I was confused at first, thinking the brew basket had gotten plugged again. I was then worried I would be left with an even bigger mess than I had on Saturday if a full basket became quickly unplugged. As I got closer to it, my wife laughed at me when I saw a full pot of hot water.
A problem like this can occur when one of those key elements, like coffee grounds, is forgotten. In my case, I was so worried about the coffee filter not folding over like it had Saturday that I spent extra time making sure it was spread out nicely in the brew basket, and I completely forgot about the coffee grounds.
I honestly believe Mr. Coffee was laughing at me the entire time during both of my mistakes, as it probably doesn’t like me because I don’t like its decanter. I’ve cursed at the decanter many times because it takes a rocket scientist’s expertise to pour it correctly. If you pour it too fast or too slow, the coffee or water in it will drip down the side and miss its intended target completely.
I would have thought decanter makers would have perfected the design of it by now that one could pour it as quickly or as slowly as one should desire without worrying about where the liquid in it was going, but apparently this one job they have is too difficult. Mankind can invent an air mattress that uses a matching set of repelling magnets in the bed and floor below to float in the air and support 2,000 pounds, but it can’t invent a decanter that can pour correctly.
Mr. Coffee quickly took advantage of my two little mistakes to get revenge for my curses against its decanter, and it also gets the last laugh in knowing that no matter how much I want to pick it up and smash it to the ground, it knows I won’t because I love the product it makes too much.
Coffee addiction. Sometimes it will drive you mad.