Coco the Psycho Coffee Maker

Everything starts out great, doesn't it? Until it isn't. Then it all becomes horrendous, a downward spiral of compromises and excuses and that desperate search for a silver lining. And yet, time and again, we almost certainly allow ourselves to blindly fall into the same old trap. And there's never any getting used to it.

You probably, no, certainly have no idea what the heck I'm blabbing about over here, huh? As vague as the preceding paragraph may be, it is, I do declare, an all encompassing truth.

Take for example the issue with weight. Everyone has one, I presume. No one is really that comfortable with their body. Then, just when you're on the cusp of being happy with yourself, you suddenly fall off the wagon and indulge. Then it's all downhill from there.

My friends, welcome to the post-holiday blues!

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Right now I should be fast asleep. An early day awaits, lots of things to do, not a lot of time to spare. And yet, here I am, in front of my crappy desktop, filling out a post. Why do I do this? I have no idea. Suddenly the urge to tap tap tap on the keys hits me, then when I do, nothing comes to mind, which in no way stops the urge. It's like a curse of sorts, really. This happens to me a lot. At certain periods in my life, I owned a guitar. And then out of nowhere, I suddenly feel the it's existence, and long to play a tune. I take it out and run my fingers through the fretboard, and then my mind goes blank.

Maybe I've some trouble maintaining focus or something?

The real tragedy is, just when I start to lose focus, and decide to stuff the guitar back in its case, I instantly regain an interest in it. Regret sets in, the unforgiving and insatiable bitch that it is.

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Whilst on the subject of personal peeves, it might be a good time to introduce you to my psychotic coffee maker. This small machine has the ability to predict the future, as it does every morning. It's one of those cheapo drip coffee makers, a gift from Time Magazine for my having taken out a subscription. I call it Coco, though I doubt if it even cares for a name.

Each morning, I wake up and make coffee with Coco, only I'm not really making coffee, but trying to catch a glimpse of what kind of day awaits me. On really good days, it works perfectly, churning out a perfect cup of joe that gives me the right amount of perkiness. Then there are so-so days, wherein Coco makes weird noises, sounding like a vulture regurgitating a full meal of roadkill for its vulture-chicks. On these days I could hardly keep myself awake at work, I just go through the motions and put everything off for the next day. On days when the world hits you squarely in the face with a dozen or so curveballs, Coco doesn't make coffee at all. It just huffs and puffs smoke and kills off any interest in breakfast. That's when I know I'd be better off calling in sick and just feel miserable.

Obviously, it could just be the other way around. Maybe Coco, instead of predicting the future, is actually shaping it up for me. In the grand scheme of things, Coco is the puppeteer, pulling all of my strings, telling me what to do.

Now, if that were the case, that Coco is pre-conditioning me each morning according to its whims and follies, then I'm the bigger fool for letting myself be conned by it.

But the problem is, what do I do about it? Do I get another, more stable coffee maker? A French press, perhaps? I can't be sure, what if the new coffee maker is a bigger nut that Coco is? I'd be doomed for sure. So, for the time being, I'm empowering Coco to have its way with me. I'm just too lazy to fight it.