Frank wanted a coffeemaker for work. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive. At home we’ve had a percolator (electric) for years, but he wanted a drip one for ease of use. He’s been keeping his eye out for one for weeks. One day I was at Goodwill and saw an old coffeemaker that brought back childhood memories with its beige color, brown and orange “coffee brew strength” accents. My eyes lingered on it, and I moved on.

Wouldn’t you know, my husband nabbed it and slyly brought it to the checkout? Ten bucks. “Hey, a guy at work brought one of these for the breakroom a few years ago (at his old job), and it was the best drip coffeemaker.”

Normally I would have let it leave my house and not complained. I have no problem using cups, plates, bowls from Goodwill. I do have a some reservations about using things I can’t scour clean, that have inside mechanisms that I can’t inspect with my own eyeballs… Irrational thoughts of someone running their own urine through a coffeemaker. You know, things like that.

So, being the good wife I am (and having a strange magnetism towards this happy-looking little coffeemaker), I took it upon myself to clean any imaginary urine out of it by running vinegar through it 8000 times. It honestly didn’t look like it had been used at all. Although each time I ran the vinegar through there was always a bit of sediment (looked like dust) floating on top of the water. Finally I just went to the store and got some official coffee cleaner. Ran that through a few times and the water was crystal, spanking, clear.

After all that cleansing care, it seemed right to also do a “test run” and make some coffee.

“You like the coffeemaker, don’t you?” Frank sighed, seeing the signs on the wall.

I ignored his insinuating question.

In turn it seemed right to actually drink the coffee.

Frank’s eyes rolled, accusing me of latching on to the maker, and also assuming his search for a coffeemaker was not over, as it seemed it was when he walked out of Goodwill with his Norelco DIAL-a-BREW II.

Thankfully, we found a cheap-o special deal during the Christmas Special Frenzies a couple weeks back, ’cause that DIAL-a-BREW makes one mean cup of coffee, and I’m not letting it go.