It wasn't the best of times. It was the worst of times. On Tuesday I was prepping my coffee for the simultaneous sip when suddenly disaster struck. My Keurig was full of water with the first batch of coffee ready to go. All I needed to do was hit the button, so I did. The coffee maker sprung to life and I could hear the water heating. In no time I would have the first pre-sip of the day. 

Then it happened. Out of nowhere, my coffee maker shut off. What? How could this be. Did I just imagine the heating and anticipation. No? So, I tried again. Power on. Reinsert coffee pod. Select the bunch  of coffee button. The coffee maker sprung to life and the water began to heat up. Heating complete, the coffee maker died another agonizing death. No coffee.

We immediately instituted emergency procedures by quickly grabbing a Diet Mount Dew from the fridge. It isn't coffee, but it might just carry us through the morning sip with nobody the wiser. At the same time we rushed to Amazon.com with the sweet sounds of  the Scott Adams School playing in the background. Yes, there is hope.

A quick search of Amazon reveals a long list of Keurig machines, but which one should we choose? Well, we could get one like the last one, but that loser of a coffee maker failed us miserably, so there was only one thing to do: get one with more buttons. That should help. Amazingly, the one with more buttons also happens to be stainless, so we order that one quickly. Stainless sounds good, since coffee could obviously stain stuff.

But when will it arrive? We note that it is scheduled to arrive the very next day. No, it won't arrive by Scott Adams School time, but we might just survive long enough off of Diet Mountain Dew to not die a horrible death, so we make it through a hard fought day and lay our head on the pillow with dreams of a coffee maker dancing in our head.

We jump up early the next morning, looking for the coffee maker. No, it hasn't arrived. We knew better, but we had hoped a miracle would occur. We settle in to attempt to survive another day off of Diet Mountain Dew, a poor substitution.

Then it happens. We decide it is time to go check on our trusty guard dog, Bobo. What do we find? A big box on the front porch. No, Bobo isn't exactly good at guarding. He's much better at napping. The UPS driver put our beloved coffee maker on the front porch without Bobo stirring.

We quickly rush inside and grab the coffee maker that failed us miserable. It is banished to the back porch, to be expelled to the recycling center at the earliest opportunity. Then, we turn our attention to the newly arrived box.

It is a Keurig box. Not one of those generic Amazon boxes. We quickly cut the box open, only to reveal another box inside, that fits snuggly into the outer box. What to do? Do we struggle to remove one box from the other? Heck no. We cut the inner box open quickly and remove all the contents. 

Anything that isn't coffee maker or instructions is quickly disguarded. Do we read the instructions? Certainly not. We just throw them in a drawer in case of emergency. Instructions? We don't need no stinking instructions. We quickly turn our attention to the new stainless wonder that is our next coffee maker.

Plugging it in first is the obvious first step, but they got some tied thing on the end of the plug. We remove it quickly with a knife. Coffee maker plugged and it springs to life. Shocked, we see that it has one of those VCR style clocks blinking 0:00. Oh, the horror. This is going to be more scary than we ever anticipated. 

We quickly inspect our new coffee maker, noting that it isn't all stainless steal. Some of it must be stainless plastic or something, but we are willing to live with that. We attempt to open the water bin, but to no avail. It is tapped shut. In a bit of rage, we remove tape from all over the place. Coffee maker folks use that tape just to frustrate us eager sippers.

Quickly we fill the water bin. We insert our favorite Auburn mug to catch the sweet nectar that is about to poor forth. We even manage to set that annoying clock thingy. How? We just push buttons and pray. Hopefully an incorrect time won't influence the taste of the coffee. We insert a coffee pod, mash some buttons, and the coffee maker roars to life.

Ah, satisfaction. Now, that's good coffee. Keep sippin.

Be useful.