I gave the sibling assignment this week.
Finish this sentence." I will never forget the time _______happened at 516 W. Cameron. Remember? It was a huge disaster."
516 W. Cameron is where our growing up took place. Many disasters have happened that involved overflowing toilets, basement floods, and a drawer falling out of the frig numerous times. Most disasters always seem to take place over holidays or when family members all came home for some event. You will find RP's own version of "The Cable Guy" here and Silver Valley Girl (after attaching most disasters growing up to me) reminded me of the almost second eruption of Mt. St. Helen's here.
I am an educated woman. I know how a coffee maker works. I do have a brain, even in the morning. Somehow when a task that involve an appliance, making a food item, and my mother's kitchen comes together a cosmic experience involving planets and stars aligning with the universe doom me and shout "disaster".
This particular day I was making coffee. I don't know how I managed to do it, but the filter didn't get positioned right or the swingy thing that holds the filter didn't get secured right, or who knows what else could have happened, but the coffee did not go from the filter basket into the pot. I got up to check to see if the coffee was done and was surprised to see that the pot was almost empty. My eye caught a brown liquid with coffee flecks traveling down the front of the cupboard. I was relieved to see that the coffee had only gone down and dripped into one drawer. I could handle cleaning that up. It doesn't take much to dry off baggies, clips for bags, coffee filters, and twenty-five wooden spoons. I could maybe even do it before Mom realized what had happened. Then my eye caught the area of the counter where the cups hang on a little mug tree. I saw more of the brown liquid there. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I heard my Mom's voice from the living room.
" Is the coffee done?"
" Uhhh... there seems to be a bit of a problem...."
I didn't have to finish the sentence before my mom shot off the couch with the speed of lightening.
" The coffee didn't seem to go into the pot", I apologized.
My mom's intuition told her within seconds that coffee must be seeping into every crevice and appliance on the west side of the kitchen. She moved into action.
What we discovered was the brownish sort of coffee went behind the stove, seeped under the refrigerator and rested against the far wall of the kitchen. In examining the damage it seemed like I had made twenty cups of coffee. How could eight cups of coffee water make such a mess?
By the time we moved out the appliances, cleaned the floor, moved everything back, wiped the sweat off our faces, cleaned the counter, and washed the grounds out of the coffee maker and made another pot I was exhausted. Needless to say, when I return home now Mom makes the coffee ahead of time and keeps her eagle eye on me if I get near the coffee maker when the pot is almost empty. It is also a blessing Mom doesn't own a coffee grinder.
