The Back-Up Coffee Grinder

I married into a family of pack rats. They had been pack rats since the Civil War, and continued to be pack rats as long as they lived. I was in tune with that, being somewhat afflicted, myself.

But, when Jim and I combined our stuff, there were minor issues. Such as, there was never room in his house for all my books, so they stayed in boxes in the attic. As well, his furniture was better than mine, so I let my kids have whatever they wanted of my stuff, and got rid of the rest.

As time went on, I realized that Jim's parents had downsized when they retired here from Nebraska. "Downsizing" did not mean getting rid of stuff, it meant cramming it all into a smaller house, and giving some of it to Jim to cram into his house.

Jim had also "downsized," in the same manner, when he and his first wife split. so, when it came time to combine our household with Jim's mother's, it took a larger house to accommodate everything, and it was STILL crammed to the max. All the rooms, except the three we actually used, were storage rooms, with no hope of redemption, unless he could floor more attic space.

Eventually, Jim's mother passed away. We packed up ALL the STUFF and schlepped it back to her old house, and crammed what we could inside, and into the two outside sheds. Needless to say, age of items was the criterion used to decide what went where.

Our living room looked like the back room of an antique shop, with a computer and a large screen TV incongruously and uneasily perched among the Civil War furniture and ancient pianos. Contemporary furniture was left to rot in the back yard.

Many small appliances had been duplicated in all this combining of households, and I have got rid of several coffee makers, toasters, microwaves and such.

However, I did hang onto a second electric coffee grinder.

I ran across it a couple of weeks ago. I know I did. Do you think I can find it now?

Not a chance!

My usual coffee grinder has developed a crack in the cover which, even with the application of judicious amounts of duct tape, makes it a tad bit whimsical in the performance of its duty.

So. Where did I put the other one? Kitchen cabinets? Nope. Utility room cabinets? Nope again. Hall closet? Negative. Pantry? Nary a sign of it.

I will grind my coffee beans with a mortar and pestle (of which there are several) before I buy another coffee grinder.

I really, really hate to work that hard for coffee.