Memories of Mom - The Coffee Pot
"Come over quick....the coffee came out good."
My mother had an old coffee maker that she claimed could
make good or bad coffee. It was one of those old stainless
steel percolators that had a two-prong cable that plugged
into the wall. Straight power - no fooling around in the old
days.
This pot created all kinds of havoc, because my mother
lived in fear of "what it might do". More than once, we'd
be driving from her apartment down to visit a friend on
Cape Cod (about 100 miles) and halfway there she would
freak out and insist she had left the coffee pot plugged in
and we would have to turn around and go back to unplug
it "or there will be a fire". I can't recall a single time that
we found it plugged in. "Sorry", she'd say, "but I can't
risk burning the place down". "Why not?", I'd ask.
"It's not like you'd be there". For some reason, she
didn't think that was funny. Go figure.
But the best part was how we would have to "come over
right away" if the coffee "came out good". I guess she
thought we wouldn't visit unless there was a better
reason than just visiting. As if we were thinking, "Oh,
no, I don't want to go there....but wait....she has coffee.
Can't get THAT anywhere else. We'd better go!"
Right.
After my mother passed away, I "inherited" the old
coffee pot. I tried to find out just how old it was -
I e-mailed the company that made it, providing them
with the model number. Their response was, "Our
records don't go back that far."
And the kicker is - we CANNOT make a bad pot of coffee
with this thing. It's impossible. Which can mean only
one thing - the "good coffee" WAS nothing but a ploy!
Couldn't she have just asked us to come over?
No. For some reason, this kind of trickery was the norm
for my mother. Everything had to be something
else. No one is quite sure why, but as soon as she
heard anything, she immediately started formulating
an alternate reality for whatever it was. Nothing
could just "be". There had to be an alternative motive.
Perhaps it had to do with who her parents were/weren't
(mentioned in a previous post) - she may have grown
up with deception as the norm and couldn't shake it.
Although she DID seem to enjoy it. She would change a
story to suit her needs and from that point on there
would be no evidence that could convince her of
anything but her own "reality". One of these days
I'll laundry-list some of the fun "facts" she worked
up. That should be a lovely stroll down Memory Lane!
Anyway - I have to go now. The coffee came out good.
My mother had an old coffee maker that she claimed could
make good or bad coffee. It was one of those old stainless
steel percolators that had a two-prong cable that plugged
into the wall. Straight power - no fooling around in the old
days.
This pot created all kinds of havoc, because my mother
lived in fear of "what it might do". More than once, we'd
be driving from her apartment down to visit a friend on
Cape Cod (about 100 miles) and halfway there she would
freak out and insist she had left the coffee pot plugged in
and we would have to turn around and go back to unplug
it "or there will be a fire". I can't recall a single time that
we found it plugged in. "Sorry", she'd say, "but I can't
risk burning the place down". "Why not?", I'd ask.
"It's not like you'd be there". For some reason, she
didn't think that was funny. Go figure.
But the best part was how we would have to "come over
right away" if the coffee "came out good". I guess she
thought we wouldn't visit unless there was a better
reason than just visiting. As if we were thinking, "Oh,
no, I don't want to go there....but wait....she has coffee.
Can't get THAT anywhere else. We'd better go!"
Right.
After my mother passed away, I "inherited" the old
coffee pot. I tried to find out just how old it was -
I e-mailed the company that made it, providing them
with the model number. Their response was, "Our
records don't go back that far."
And the kicker is - we CANNOT make a bad pot of coffee
with this thing. It's impossible. Which can mean only
one thing - the "good coffee" WAS nothing but a ploy!
Couldn't she have just asked us to come over?
No. For some reason, this kind of trickery was the norm
for my mother. Everything had to be something
else. No one is quite sure why, but as soon as she
heard anything, she immediately started formulating
an alternate reality for whatever it was. Nothing
could just "be". There had to be an alternative motive.
Perhaps it had to do with who her parents were/weren't
(mentioned in a previous post) - she may have grown
up with deception as the norm and couldn't shake it.
Although she DID seem to enjoy it. She would change a
story to suit her needs and from that point on there
would be no evidence that could convince her of
anything but her own "reality". One of these days
I'll laundry-list some of the fun "facts" she worked
up. That should be a lovely stroll down Memory Lane!
Anyway - I have to go now. The coffee came out good.
posted by Mr. L at 10:26 AM
6 Comments:
It was a coffee pot like you described that hooked me on coffee at a very early age. I inherited it to take to college where it doubled as a Rice-a-Roni maker. It then started to not make such good coffee. Okay, I didn't clean it out all that well, either. It once gave me a psychodelic experience. Mold can do funny shit.
lol, good coffee or not, I'd be seriously afraid to use that coffee pot!
Oh, I love ancient kitchen gadgets, electric or not. Save me some coffee.
i read this post last week (at parents' house), then made my mom read it, then tried to comment. i think the computer almost exploded. anyhow, i wanted to let you know, albeit belatedly, how much i loved this story. keep 'em coming... then publish them in a volume.
Damn - I forgot to include one of the 'features' of that old percolator...if you touch any of the metal (and it's mostly metal) while plugging the power cord into the wall, you get a pretty good electric current up your arm! I learned to make plugging it in THE LAST STEP of the process. It doesn't deliver a 'jolt', just that warm vibration.
This probably confirms Webmiztris' fear,
but from my experience this sort of thing was not uncommon with early appliances. Really!
I wonder what your mother would say if she knew her memory lived on in that coffee pot. At any rate, she sounds like a woman that was fun to know.
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