*sigh* Coffee!

If you're like me, in the morning you head from your bed straight for the coffee-maker.  (Yes, many of us have detours, but our actual destination remains the coffee-maker.)  My thoughts around this time are basic and, put into words, would probably sound like "Ummmm---coffee----good!"  Coherent thought appears shortly after the first cup of coffee is half-way gone.

I love my coffee-maker!  I depend on my coffee-maker!  I am mad at my coffee-maker!  Yes, that has a slight sound of "crazy" to it, but hear me out.

My coffee-maker has quite a few bells and whistles.  I don't bother with most of them since my one aim is simply to drink that coffee, not to attend a seminar learning all about the "care and feeding" of the machine.  One of the bells and whistles that I am unable to ignore, however, is the way it nags me.  Yes, I did say it nags me.  How can a machine nag someone, you ask.  Simple!  Whoever designed this machine programmed it to flash CLN when it needs a cleaning.  I work hard to ignore that CLN but after a while I cannot ignore it any longer and clean the machine.  The flashing CLN stops.  Life is good again.

Yesterday I committed a coffee-maker "sin".  I did not wait for the machine to flash CLN.  I decided that the coffee was becoming very slightly bitter (a sure sign that it requires cleaning) and jumped the gun (or in this case the flashing CLN).  The resulting coffee, after the machine was cleaned, was absolute ambrosia and I was so very, very happy.

Jump forward to this morning.  I get up.  I realize the coffee-maker is empty.  I stagger over to the pantry and get all the necessaries and grind and prepare the coffee.  I turn on the coffee-maker.  FINALLY the coffee is ready and I go to fill my mug.  And the coffee-maker is flashing CLN!  I must have stood in a frozen position for nearly a minute, trying to process the information with my sluggish, coffee-deprived brain. Yes, it was flashing CLN.  I was not hallucinating from lack of caffeine.  Surely making two pots of coffee could not dirty the machine to the point of requiring another cleaning!

A mug of coffee later, still staring at the flashing CLN, I was still unable to understand what could have happened to my until-now beloved coffee-maker.  Was it getting even with me for cleaning it before it decided it required cleaning?  Could a machine even think of getting even?  Did someone install emotions along with the other programmes?  And then my daughter phoned.  Yay!  A distraction!  Someone else to ask the burning question: why is my coffee-maker asking to be cleaned?

*sigh* The coffee-deprived mind is a dangerous thing.  My daughter put everything into perspective.  Most likely the machine had merely been programmed to flash CLN after a set number of uses.  I jumped the gun and cleaned it.  The coffee-maker had no way of knowing it had been cleaned and the set number of uses came up today...and it did what it was programmed to do: flash CLN.

So simple.  So embarrassingly simple.  I need another cup of coffee...