Assault by Battery

I am not a morning person.

I've known this for a long time. And yet, after getting up at 4:30 a.m. to make the 5:30 a.m. workout, three times a week, for nearly a year (more than a year?), I thought maybe I had figured out how to compensate for my lack of morning alertness.

I thought wrong.

I know that I need that full hour of preparation in order to have a cup of coffee – caffeine being key to my ability to function properly in the morning – before attempting to dress myself (full set of clothing always selected the night before) and driving to the gym. I just hadn't realized how tenuous my grip on early-morning cognition was until last week.

Things were going along according to schedule until I knocked the teeny-tiny travel alarm clock off the teeny-tiny medicine cabinet shelf. I think the fact that I was able to hit such a small target in such an out of the way location with my early morning flailings says a lot about why I need to start waking up an hour before my workout.

And, I should probably mention, that teeny-tiny clock has sat on that teeny-tiny shelf for lo, these many years, trying in vain to keep me on time in the morning, without ever being bumped, let alone knocked off the teeny-tiny shelf. And that, for the past month or so I have noticed that not only was it off by an hour (from the last day light savings time switch), but by an additional 20 minutes, too. All of which means the teeny-tiny clock served more as a reminder that time is continually passing, and less as a notification of the actual time.

Regardless of the relativity of time, I watched in open-mouthed surprise (the medicine cabinet has a mirror in addition to teeny-tiny shelves) as the teeny-tiny clock fell (or jumped, in a desperate bid for freedom) off the teeny-tiny shelf and bounced in the sink, dislodging the teeny-tiny cover to the battery, which set the teeny-tiny A-sized battery loose (in its own desperate bid for freedom). The battery's freedom was short lived – or poorly executed – as it slipped down the gaping maw of the sink drain.

Well.

Not having any idea how to rescue the teeny-tiny battery, and being more than a little miffed that it would choose that particular moment to bolt, and knowing that the sink would not be used again until after I returned from my workout, I did the only thing my sleep-lacking brain could think of – I turned off the light and went to the gym.

As soon as I pulled out of the driveway, however, I started to imagine that teeny-tiny battery making its way through the drain pipe, through the sewer system, and out into some creek, where it would be eaten by a teeny-tiny fish, who would die a horrible death and then be dissected by a humorless EPA official who would find the teeny-tiny battery and somehow trace it back to me and immediately send a SWAT team to apprehend me at the gym.

I may not be very physically coordinated in the morning, but my imagination functions just fine.

So it was that I found myself planning an elaborate, Rube Goldberg-esque, system for retrieving the teeny-tiny battery instead of paying attention to the workout instructions (not a totally new situation), and managed to mess up two of the stretches. Stretches, mind you. Stretches which are important, but not, typically that mentally demanding.

I returned home and gathered supplies – needle nosed pliers, a drinking straw, a slender wire, and a piece of gum – for my MacGyver inspired battery-retrieval plan, only to discover that I couldn't even see, much less reach the battery with whatever it was I had in mind.

So it was that the husband found me searching for a monkey wrench to dismantle the drain pipe. I had hoped to handle this situation without his knowledge because he was preparing to leave for a week-long, work-related trip, and he had more than enough on his to-do list already. The husband – who is a morning person – calmly told me I probably would not need a monkey wrench, but reminded me to place a bucket under the pipe before proceeding.

And so it was I left him in the tool room, pondering the wisdom of leaving me to care for the teen-age son and the cat for an entire week.

Such is the miracle of modern, plastic drain pipes that the s-curve was quickly disassembled without any tools, the teeny-tiny battery was rescued and properly disposed of, the lives of countless innocent fishes were saved, and the SWAT team intervention was averted.

And the teeny-tiny alarm clock on the teeny-tiny shelf received a new battery and has been set to the actual time. Or something close to it.

But I'm keeping the wire and gum nearby, just in case.

Is That a Mug in Your Pocket or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

Dear Mr. Coffee,

I'm a big fan of yours. Or, I should say I'm a big fan of coffee (the life-supporting beverage), and I have been – off and on – a big fan of Mr. Coffee, in that you make coffee in a readily ingested liquid form available in my cup.

But that's about to change.

The part about being a fan of Mr. Coffee, not the part about being a fan of coffee (nectar of the gods).

You see Mr. Coffee, you have the same problem other “Misters” have. You have a problem measuring.

Just like fishermen are said to misrepresent the size of their fish, you misrepresent your cup size.

Maybe I'm being too harsh when I say “misrepresent.” Perhaps “fail to mention,” “neglect to inform” or “skip that important little tidbit” would be more accurate.

You see, I recently undertook what I thought was a coffee maker upgrade. My puny (but honest) one-cup-at-a-time coffee maker just wasn't satisfying me anymore. It took too long to heat up, required too much effort to get ready for action, and sometimes it finished before I was satisfied with the fill level.

So picked up an available 5-cup maker at a coffee bar. Bigger, better, faster, more. At least that's what the label said.

Except....

Except that my one-cup-at-a-time maker put out as much coffee as I put in water. Within reason, of course. For cups over 12-oz., I was advised to seek immediate attention (to avoid reservoir overflow).

And yes. I do have cups bigger than 12-oz. I like big cups and I can not lie.

Imagine my surprise then, when I realized the pot for my new 5-cup brewer was not much bigger than my mug. Cups is cups is cups right?

Not so much, I discovered.

While the box clearly advertised “5-cups” it never actually mentioned cup size. After looking really, really hard, there in the fine print, buried on page eight of the user manual I discovered:

“1-cup = 5 oz. brewed coffee.”

Which strikes me as funny because there in the large print, clearly emblazoned in eye-catching, red letters on the front of my Pyrex liquid measuring cup it says:

“1-cup = 8 oz.”

And, of course, I think:

“1-cup = 12 oz.”

So my new (bigger, better, faster, more) coffee machine makes just 20 ounces of coffee at a time. That's one and a half mugs. I won't even mention the premature pouring.

I now realize my new machine is the same size as those sleazy motel coffee maker affairs. The ones that make only two styrofoam cups-full. That's just enough to get me moving and down to the front desk, where – God help us all – there had better be an urn of complimentary coffee or there will be hell to pay. If I get lucky, it's enough coffee to get me to the mini-mart next door to satisfying my jonesing. I have been known to stop for a mini-mart cup of coffee on my way to the fancy schmancy coffee shop so that I have a lil' sum sum to tide me over as I wait for the gravity-fed, peace-love-and-mellowness, slow-drip coffee to come together in my cup.

While we're on the subject, I think hotels should offer a choice of caffeinated or decaffeinated rooms (with two packets of one style grounds, instead of one of each), much like the smoking and nonsmoking rooms available now. I'm the only one in my family who drinks coffee, which is why we are able to share one overcrowded hotel room without incident, even as the kids get bigger and we argue over sleeping arrangements, pillow allotments, towel assignments, shower time and possession of room keys.

But I digress.

Which is what happens when I drink coffee 5-ounces at a time.

So really, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Because when it comes to coffee, Mister, size matters.