About a week ago, Eric’s Biological Gadget Receptor¹, or possibly his New Project Induction Enzyme² alerted him to the fact that he hadn’t bought anything that requires electricity in several weeks and he decided that, after six years of Keurig ownership, we needed to stop cramming landfills with K-cups and go back to a good, old-fashioned coffee pot. I was promptly emailed a link to a good, old-fashioned coffee pot³ to purchase, and, through the magic of Amazon Prime, it arrived on our doorstep two days later.
As I was submitting this week’s online grocery order, it occurred to me to ask him what kind of coffee he wanted for his new coffee pot. Store brand? Dunkin’ Donuts? Whole bean or ground? After dithering for a few minutes, he finally selected whole bean, reasoning we could just leave our coffee grinder out on the counter for efficiency. Before I pressed submit, I had to ask: “I promise I’m not being snarky. This is an actual, legitimate question. Will grinding the coffee, filling the pot and setting it for the next morning turn into one of my tasks every night? Because if yes, then I’m getting ground coffee.” He assured me it would not.
This morning, when I woke up to no coffee, I was unconcerned; our Keurig was still on the counter, and I had a piping hot cup in under 60 seconds. I can’t fault Eric though; he explained he didn’t set it up because didn’t know what time I wanted it set for and didn’t get a chance to ask me before I went to bed. At 11:30 pm.
In the evening, Eric usually ambles down from work between 5 and 5:30 and performs the indispensable task of distracting the girls (who tend to initiate meltdown mode around 4:30 ever day) so I can cook or clean the litter box or cry into my wine. Tonight, however, his first self-assigned task was figuring out how to completely empty the water out of the Keurig so we could store it for those times when you want coffee, but don’t want to make a whole pot and also don’t want to use the single-serve option your coffee pot has built in, and also feel like going down to the basement and rooting through various precariously piled boxes whose contents don’t match their labels. After wondering aloud how one would accomplish this, he took my helpful suggestion to Google it, which led him to a series of YouTube videos, judging by which the problem of emptying water out of Keurigs is primarily a rural Southern one. After getting various answers, ranging from “it can’t be done” to “you’re going to need a set of needle-nosed pliers and some zip ties,” he set to work.
I know what you’re thinking, based solely on your gender. If you’re a guy, you’re wondering what size pliers he used and if he found a better way to get the job done. If you’re a woman, you’re probably wondering WHY THE EFF HE CHOSE TO DO THIS AT 5:30 PM WHILE YOU ARE COOKING DINNER AND THE CHILDREN ARE WRAPPED AROUND YOUR LEGS WHINING. Fortunately, we work as such a smooth team that all I had to do was say his name: “Eric?”
“I know, I know,” he said. “Probably not the best time to be doing this.”
God, I felt so smug. We didn’t even have to have an argument over it. I just gave him a gentle reminder, not even a full sentence, and he put it aside for later, scooped up the girls and started giving them Tickle Monster Airplane Rides around the house. We have such a great partnership.
Again, I know what you’re thinking, and this time you’re all thinking the same thing: No he didn’t you lying liar. And you’re right. After acknowledging his poor timing, he went to get the zip ties.
Back before we were married, before we had kids, we went to see my favorite comedian, Brian Regan, perform live. One of the bits he did was about how, when you have kids, you find yourself saying things you never, ever could have imagined would ever come out of your mouth, things like, “Potential need for cookies and Silly Putty,” or, “If you’re both good the whole time we’re at the store I’ll buy you each a box of Shopkins Band-Aids and let you put them all over your dolls.” I often think of that bit at times like this. For example, I don’t think I would ever have imagined I would someday type the words, “At this point, Klara and Joanna were both screaming because I asked them to close the back door, and they both wanted to close it, but they couldn’t close it together because KLARA WANTED TO CLOSE THE DOOR LIKE A ROBOT and JOANNA DID NOT.” And you just start wondering, “How is this my life? I mean, I love it. I love that it’s my life. But seriously like, why is Klara saying, ‘Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?’ while I’m trying to focus on this recipe that has me using two pans at the same time to cook some Whole30 nonsense food because Eric’s High Maintenance Food Requirement Gland told him he can’t eat any carbs this year, and when I answer her she tells me to tell Daddy that she really needs him to help her find a way to look like a robot even though he’s three feet away from her. How is this acceptable behavior for anyone, and more importantly how does Eric tune it out so easily because I want to learn?”
If you’re having trouble visualizing this, here’s a helpful video. (I took it intending to share it with my sister-in-law, who who also suffers from being married to a male, and my sister, who is married to a male of the Australian genus and thinks our struggles are adorable.) You can hear Klara’s request to be a robot at the end. Sorry for the shaky camera work.
As for the results? Well, these are actual quotes from Eric, all uttered within ten minutes of the end of that video:
“I guess it would have probably broken anyway…”
“I’m gonna do one more cut and see what happens.”
“I’ll be right back, I have to go throw out our Keurig.”
Oh, and here’s a picture of the robot costumes I found them in when I came up from cleaning the litter box:
Thanks, Honey!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go grind some coffee, fill the coffee pot and set it for tomorrow morning.
¹A trait found primarily on the Y chromosome. Back to top
²Presence detected with equal frequency in both sexes. Back to top
³An unnecessarily complex machine with both a full-pot mode and a single-serve mode that requires special pods but also allows you to use the washable filter to make your own pods with pre-ground coffee. Back to top