An offering to the Coffee Gods

By Karrie McAllister

I have a little coffee problem. Well, many of them, actually, starting with the fact that I drink too much of it. It's not even for the caffeine, since during my recent pregnancy I was very, very good at choosing decaf. It's just a plain old addiction. I crave it. All day long. A javamaniac, a coffee-holic.
But this is not the problem I’m speaking of today. Today’s problem is that I'm also a busy mom. During any given day, I have only short periods of time when I can enjoy this hot beverage before:
a) I need to drive someone somewhere or pick them up
b) The buzzer on the dryer goes off
c) The dogs bark at a petrified delivery man
d) I smell a stinky diaper
d) My son pulls on my sweater until I play him a song on the banjo (this actually happened a few weeks ago...)
or, most likely,
e) All of the above. At the same time.
And so it is with great sadness that I realize that in the past six years, I've probably only finished four cups of coffee in their entirety while they were actually still hot. Warm, even. Barely tepid. Usually what happens is I’ll get three-quarters of the way through my cup-o-joe and set it down in a miscellaneous location and run off to the interruption of the minute.
Then, most likely at a later point in the day I'll stumble upon a cup with an inch and half of cold, stale coffee in the bottom anywhere from my desk to the laundry room to sometimes even the garage. Not wanting that last bit to go to waste and being too busy to make a new pot of coffee, I stick the old stuff in the microwave until it is so hot that the taste is somewhat disguised by the burning sensation on my tongue.
And then sometimes I’ll even forget that I put it in the microwave and discover it a few hours later and be pleasantly surprised before reheating yet again.
This is how I operate. Or rather, how I've ADAPTED over the years.
My husband, however, does not understand my methods. He does not understand the constant interruptions of my daily life, nor does know how to operate the dryer or play the banjo. In his world, he sits at a desk or whatever he does, and although I know there is the frequent phone call, I'm sure no one is tugging on his shirt or beckoning him to the bathroom for assistance.
So it follows that when my husband finds one of my coffee cups with a remaining few sips in the bottom (of which there are more likely more than one around the house,) he turns on the humor...or so he thinks.
"Oh great Gods of the Coffee Bean, we offer this quarter cup of cold brewed beverage to you in sacrifice," he likes to say in a pitiful transcendent and theatrical voice, raising the cup above his head. And then he dumps it down the drain.
This, naturally, makes me cringe. Not only does he completely mock my coffee habits, but he embarrasses himself using that stupid voice as he dumps out my quarter cup of perfectly good cold coffee!
It's these sorts of actions that really irritate the Coffee Gods.
I'm sure of it.
I’m also sure the Coffee Gods understand my little problem quite well, which is why they have given us the gift of caffeine. And microwaves.