The Incompetent Temporary Bachelor Chronicles: Vol. I

MLB is in another time zone on business, leaving me and the Dog Faced Girl to fend for ourselves, a task for which we each are woefully ill-equipped. In fairness to Abbye, the fact that she’s aged, infirm, blind, and lacks opposable thumbs gives her some legitimate excuses that I, for the most part (hold your snide observations) lack. 

Take the task of making coffee, for example. Now, one of the things my wife does to ensure that our home is a little bit of heaven on earth is prepare our fancy-schmancy coffeemaker the night before, so that when I arise at precisely 5:26 a.m. and stroll into the kitchen, while she’s hammering out mileage on the treadmill I’m dispensing a cuppa joe so fresh it’s like a slap in the face from Miley Cyrus. 

She makes it look easy, but I’m finding there’s more to it than meets the eye. Monday night, for example, I set everything up, carefully measuring three cups of water and four scoops of coffee that would yield my expected three cups of java. I failed to consider the effects of overnight evaporation and water loss during the brewing cycle, and had to resort to sucking on the bottom of a soggy #4 flat-bottomed filter to get my RDA of caffeine on Tuesday morning. If that paints a sad mental picture, I assure you that the reality is worse. 

Last night, I was determined not to repeat that mistake, and I didn’t. I achieved that goal by grasping at a higher standard of incompetence, as I failed to remember to put any water at all into the coffeemaker. 

I can’t wait to see what awaits me in the morning. I’m pretty sure that I’m approaching the end of the possible ways to mess up this task, but if things go badly again tomorrow, I’m putting Abbye in charge. She couldn’t do any worse.


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