My Coffee Pot

When something doesn't work...

I love my coffee percolator. Part of my joy is how I came to buy it.

We were fixing up a rented house in a small Alberta town and my husband said to me,

“Take a break from the cleaning, love! I need to get a new lock for the back door so I can finish that job. Do you wanna come?”

“Sure!” I said, and threw the scrubber into the pail. “That store has neat stuff you don’t find anywhere else.” I wiggled my fingers free from the rubber gloves.

Strolling the aisles in the hardware store, stretching my cramped leg muscles, my eyes roamed the shelves of interesting gadgets. It was a nice change from peering into grubby cupboard corners! I was not looking to buy anything, but there it was!

Her elegant, gleaming body invited me to touch, her pouting spout made me smile and her sensible handle drew my hand to pick her up.

I savoured the moment. This was an unexpectedly good thing! In a troubled world it is good to stop and savour such moments.

And it happens from time to time: you meet someone, and the relationship feels ‘just right’, or you make a plan and everything ‘falls into place’.

She felt familiar, comfortably cradled in my hands; and somehow mine. I removed her lid to peer at her inner self, took out the basket and spindle. This coffee pot was just like the one my mother used, a real percolator. Of course, Mum percolated coffee on a low flame on the gas cooker and this one was electric. But it was a real percolator; not a coffee maker with buttons to push for computerized options that meander endlessly through pathways of selections.

I hugged her to my bosom and went to the check-out.

Back at home the next day, I brewed our first pot of coffee. We watched as the first glug sent a shot of water up into the clear round plastic bubble on the knob of the lid. The glugs became more frequent, more violent, now shooting spurts of rich, brown liquid in a constant stream until exhausted; she took deeper, slower breaths and came to rest with a few wheezes. The aroma of her labours filled the kitchen.

It’s the same with a friendship or a plan of action. Good things in life need time to perk. It’s good to let them take all the time they need.

Our coffee pot served us with elegance and efficiency and drew admiring comments from our friends and family until, one day, the plastic knob caved in and crumbled in my fingers.

Sometimes life is like that! Mistrust erodes a beautiful relationship. Memories and disappointment are all that remain. A great plan fails; something is missing and it can’t work.

Determined to make my percolator whole again, I fashioned a new knob out of tin foil. It was tricky to do. I fed it through the hole in the lid, put my pinkie finger through the hole and moulded the tin foil around the end of my finger. When I withdrew my finger I flattened the edges. We had coffee again, but as she gurgled I noticed water seeping out around the edges of the foil cap.

“You can’t use that coffee pot anymore,” said my kids, “it’s done! Better throw it out and get a new one.”

But I was attached to my coffee pot. It’s the same with a relationship that has gone sour, or a plan that fails. It’s hard to let go.

We ordered a new knob but it was too big and didn’t fit in the opening on the lid.

Life can be tricky like that. It doesn’t always work out neatly. It can be awkward and uncomfortable.

However, I have a husband who doesn’t give up easily. He gnaws away at impossible problems until he finds a solution. He made the opening big enough for the new knob and sealed it with a rubber ring.

And a thorny relationship or plans that don’t move forward just need time, patience and ingenuity too. We humans have more resources within us than we give ourselves credit for.

Our coffee pot is better now than when it was new! The glass knob is clear and solid as only glass can be, whereas the plastic became cloudy with use and disintegrated.

And life is like that, too. Each new day brings fresh challenges and opportunities.