I had an unusually uplifting experience yesterday–I was able to repair a defective coffee maker!   I purchased the Mr. Coffee back in June, and it has proved to be an excellent coffee brewer.  I have always had a favorable impression with this brand.  We have used it where I work for many years and have never had a single malfunction despite heavy use.  I also knew one person who always bought a Mr. Coffee brewer at Sears and who purchased the service contract at the same time.  He was a heavy coffee drinker and had the pot on just about every day all day.   With this heavy usage the heating element usually gave out after about a year or two, but he was always able to get a new coffee brewer from Sears for free because of the agreement.  He did this for many years.

     I just recently returned from my Texas hadj and tried brewing coffee last Friday for the first time.  I left the room and came back later to find that none of the coffee had gone into the pot!  Fortunately the coffee maker was in a wide tray and all the coffee had run out and collected in the tray.  Since I didn’t want to waste the coffee, and since I knew that I would spill the coffee if I attempted to lift the flexible plastic tray and pour it into the carafe, I got a straw and sucked the coffee up one straw full at a time and transferred it to the coffee pot until the level in the tray had gone down far enough so I could safely lift it without spilling it.

     Upon examination I found that there was a lever which was pushed back when the coffee pot was put onto the hot plate.  When pushed back, the lever pressed up against this valve which opened and allowed the coffee in the basket which contained the grounds to flow through.  The coffee flowed straight down which unfortunately caused it to flow down on the outside of the coffee pot instead of into it.

     After much experimentation I found that there was no way that the coffee could flow down into the pot.  It invariably flowed on the outside of the pot and then onto the countertop.    I found that coffee leaking out onto the counter top  seemed to be a common complaint with coffee brewers.  It was very frustrating since the coffee brewer had worked like a charm until it suddenly began to malfunction.

     Then I found this little plastic dohickey in the dish washer.  I couldn’t figure out where it had come from, until I finally figured out that it snapped up under the basket and the release valve.  It was a little plastic “chute” that directed the coffee into the center of the coffee pot as it was released from the basket holding the coffee grounds.  This was the reason that the coffee was running straight down along the side of the coffee pot; there was no chute that directed the coffee to the proper position!

     I snapped the chute into position and the Mr. Coffee brewer worked perfectly!  For some reason I felt unusually elated at this little triumph.  I had gone online the night before searching for a solution to no avail.  I had even dreamed about it, and almost dreaded getting up yesterday morning because I knew that I had to work on the danged thing and didn’t have a clue where to begin.

    I began to think of how small this little victory was compared to more significant achievements that might have been performed by my ancestors in the past:  “Hey look I made fire with a stick!”  “I scared the saber tooth away from the campfire last night!”  “I finished plowing the back forty with the old mule!”  “I skinned 14 buffalo yesterday!”   All this compared to: “I found the plastic dohickey that fixed the coffee maker!” 

    I don’t care…I still feel good about it!

P.S.  If you don’t understand what I said above perhaps this excerpt from Mr. Coffee, Inc. will clarify things: (http://www.patents.com/Mr-Coffee-Inc/Bedford-Heights/OH/1307733/company/).