Cup of coffee leads to marital crisis

It’s not the top scene I envisioned when I dreamed about living in a happy marriage.

And yet, there I was this week, digging through our trash. Kitchen garbage, if you will. That’s not even the worst part of this story.

We begin with my deciding for some crazy reason that I would enjoy a cup of coffee.

Crazy in that I’m not a big coffee drinker. I’m more of a tea person.

Husband is a whole different animal. Coffee is his elixir. His all-day muse. His reason for being.

Not just any coffee. It has to be a quadruple shot of espresso motor oil made from his zillion dollar machine. I never have any need to touch the machine because I don’t want coffee.

Until I did this week, while he was on a string of conference calls.

“How hard can this be?” I asked myself as I detached the handle of the thingy that captures the grinding beans.

A better question would have been, “How bad of an idea is this?”

Because the answer would’ve been, “Epically bad.”

As the machine let out its metal-on-metal symphony, wet, gooey coffee grounds juice shot all over the kitchen.

This isn’t even the worst part of the story.

I decided my mistake was not emptying out the round grounds holder. I channeled my inner barista and gave it a solid tap, tap, tap against the side of the kitchen garbage can.

When Round Two created the same disastrous results I gave up on the coffee and did a massive kitchen clean-up. I took the trash down and loaded the rest of the week’s trash from our big bins into the back of my truck. Part of remote marsh life is driving your trash to the end of the dirt road for weekly pick up.

Hours later, Husband came and found me. He was holding the grounds holder thingy. “Do you know where the inner piece of this is?” he asked. “The machine can’t work without it.”

And there you have the worst part of the story. That sinking feeling that I had just ruined Husband’s biggest treasure.

No coffee. No joy. No store nearby to get replacement parts.

Which is how I ended up digging through our trash.

All of it.

I didn’t know which bag was the last bag.

It’s what we do, Dear Reader. For love.

For a happy marriage. Sometimes you dig through the trash.

And sometimes When you’re very, very lucky, you find the piece you must’ve flung in the trash when you tap, tap, tapped on the side of the trash can.

You forget the part that you had to dig through all the trash three times to find it.

You remember the look on Husband’s face when you presented the missing piece.

That look.

That love.

That’s what I pictured in my vision for a happy marriage. I’ll drink to that.

Just make sure you fill my cup with tea.