Washing the Coffee Pot

I despise washing the coffee pot.  

I didn't consider myself a coffee drinker until we relocated. When the house is cold and I have to get up at o'dark thirty, there is nothing like the first sip of coffee.  It gives me hope...that I will eventually wake up...that my bed will still want me at the end of the day...that my husband's lunch might make itself.  I think, in truth, I have always been a coffee drinker, but before, I just bought it.  Oh, the luxury.  I don't know what it is about sandwiches and coffee...both taste so much better when they are made by someone else.  I miss Maria.  She worked at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf down the street from my career job.  She made the best chai lattes. She knew me by name, and we would always chat.  As the crowd of caffeine crazed on-lookers waited for their next fix, I would awkwardly stare down at my gorgeous high heels, worrying if they would last me through the day, when my little toe was already getting pinched.  She would wish me well, and I would hope that I didn't spill my wonderful-mouth-watering-made-by-someone-else latte on the hood of the car as I juggled to get in and drive back to work.

Every day I wash the coffee pot.  The crevices.  The coffee grounds.  The part of the carafe that I cannot, despite endless maneuvering, ever really get my hand far down enough to wash thoroughly with the sponge.  I worry about that part.  Will it make me sick if I didn't get it clean enough?  Is that why the coffee tasted weird this morning?  I roll my eyes and rinse, swirl, try with the bottle brush, and give up.  Every day.  

One day the coffee pot had the audacity to fight back.  I was generous enough to myself to preset the sucker the night before.  Awoke to the "BERRR" of the grinder, then the smell of the fresh brew.  Scrambled to find my slippers, morning sweater, and sneak out of the bedroom.  Turned on the kitchen light to find coffee all over the counter and dripping onto the floor!  Lucky I'm crafty.  Pipe cleaners to the rescue, and those damn coffee grounds stuck in the lid were shown who was boss!  

I don't know if it's just that its mindless.  Or that I have to do it every day.  But, man do I despise washing the coffee pot.  My mom jokes with me to embrace it.  To meditate on it.  To uncover its meaning.  I know it's not really about the coffee pot.    I think it is that last part of me that I'm fighting to still keep...of my financial independence...of my old life...of my freedom from the monotony of things like...the coffee pot.