Few things in life are as rewarding as that first cup of coffee on a cool summer morning. It doesn’t have to even be good coffee, really. Even cheap coffee well made will do the job. But with good beans and a quality machine, it’s almost a religious experience. That’s what makes it so traumatic when a good machine goes bad. My beloved Krups super-machine has broken with the one true faith and begun dumping grounds into the pot. That’s got to be like taking a leak in the holy water, right? Right.

Ok so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but I’ve been limping along with a machine that makes the bottom half of the pot undrinkable for a couple of weeks now. It’s time to put the old girl out to pasture… and right it off as a disappointing $100 investment. Is it bad that I really want to get one of those industrial-sized machines that they have in convenience stores?