Never Take Your Coffee for Granted

There are some things you take for granted in life. Like the sun rising.  That Friday always comes after Thursday. And that the neon green coffee scoop will be in the coffee canister.

This morning it wasn’t. I blinked and looked in the canister again. Lots of coffee, no scoop. I checked the kitchen drawers. I checked the dish washer. I checked the drawers again. I checked the dishwasher again. No scoop.

I took a deep breath. A missing coffee scoop does not constitute an emergency. Except when, you know, I haven’t had coffee yet. So I got out my measuring spoons. But none of them looked like the right size. I castigated myself for never figuring out how many tablespoons fit into the coffee scoop.

I checked the drawers again. Still no scoop, though why I expected the third check to be different than the first two, I have no idea.  I blamed the children. I considered blaming Calvin, but he didn’t do the dishes (besides he’s been suffering from a kidney stone, so he gets a pass on the missing-coffee-scoop blame game).

Then, I remembered that I’ve been using the same amount of coffee for fourteen years, so I probably have a mental picture of what it looks like in the coffee grinder. (See, I’m brilliant like that first thing in the morning.)

I dumped beans into the grinder until it looked right.  Then, with great trepidation, I ground the beans and made the coffee. The color is good—black in the center, mahogany at the edges where it touches the mug. The smell is perfect. Woodsy aroma with esters of chocolate and smoke. (Does coffee actually have esters in it? Oh, well, it sounds good.) So I pick up the cup and delicately taste it. And it tastes wrong. The bitter bliss is gone. ACK!

I have GOT to find the coffee scoop.

Image by Arnaud Gaillard, courtesy of Wikimedia.