Eulogy to a Lost Love

We knew you wouldn't last forever, but we didn't expect to lose you so soon. We remember the day you came to live with us. You were beautiful, and we were so excited about our future together. It was great fun to spend time with you every morning. You were so shiny and new. . . and you looked so nice in our kitchen.

We had so many good days together, but time passed. Days turned into months, and the excitement of our life with you began to wear off. We hate to admit it, but we started taking you for granted. We forgot what life was like before there was you. We forgot that we had to make our coffee every morning before you arrived. It wasn't automatically ready for us when we hopped out of bed. And the coffee you brewed was hot - nice and hot - not just sort of hot. Sure, you had an automatic 2-hour shutoff, but we could always turn you back on and enjoy more time together. That was meaningful, and we didn't know it then, but it was a quality that's difficult to find in others. Oh, why didn't we take the time to tell you how we felt? How could we have been so foolish?

When you gave up the ghost last week, we knew we had lost a great friend. We had an old friend boxed up in the basement, but it wasn't the same. We liked you better. We somehow managed to pull ourselves together and made a trip to Houghton the following day to look for a more acceptable replacement. After spending a considerable amount of time in the coffee maker aisle, we settled on Mr. Coffee and brought him home with us - even though he used standard coffee filters and we had just purchased a large quantity of the cone filters we needed for you. We were determined to have a good attitude and do our best to make friends with him the following morning.

But. . . it wasn't the same. Yes, we were able to program him, and a fresh pot of sort-of-hot coffee was waiting for us the next morning. We pressed on and convinced ourselves we could live with him. Then, it happened - the automatic 2-hour shutoff. OK, we figured we would just turn him back on to keep our coffee warm a while longer. We're coffee drinkers, not coffee guzzlers, after all. Then, the big IT happened. Within a few seconds, Mr. Coffee turned himself back off. That's right. OFF. Surely we did something wrong. We turned him on again. . . and he turned himself right back off. OFF! I said, "OFF!" That's when the wailing and gnashing of teeth began.

Time to call Mr. Coffee. He has an 800 number. Please tell me which of your programmable models will stay on longer than 2 hours. Oh, none of your programmable models will stay on longer than 2 hours. It's to help absent-minded individuals - don't want them burning down their houses? Really?! Well, what if we're not absent-minded? I was informed that we would have to get a non-programmable basic model with a simple on/off switch. Uh, that's identical to the old friend we had in our basement. He's on the counter now, but we can't be happy with him anymore - not after spending so much quality time with you.

The store gave us a refund on the new Mr. Coffee, and we spent a lot of time and gigabytes looking for an acceptable new friend. Good friends aren't easily replaced. None were to be found anywhere within 100 miles. We were forced to order a new friend - sight unseen. Madame Cuisinart is supposed to stay on for 4 hours, and people say she's hot. She'll arrive next week, and we're trying to remain hopeful that we'll learn to love her as much as we did you. I'm sorry to say that some of our memories of mornings spent with you are already beginning to fade. . .

but we want you to know that we loved you. Oh, how we loved you!

All is well in the Keweenaw.