Practice makes perfect.
And after uncounted mornings of making the coffee, measuring the scoops of Major Dickason's Blend beans into the grinder, filling water into the coffee maker while it grinds, washing the pot and filter holder, setting the filter in place, I've got it down to a science, achieving the steaming pot of Peet's perfection with the minimum of motion. Efficiency of action. Uniformity of result.
Until something goes wrong. Every now and then, I'll leave the ground beans in the grinder and turn the coffee maker on, realizing my mistake only when I take a sip of hot dirty brown water. Or pour ground coffee into the grinder. Or, as in this case, skip the grinding part and dump the whole beans directly into the coffee maker — the result, I believe, of that bag of ground coffee (Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut. My wife likes it. What can I do? It's her house too). My theory is, sometimes using ground coffee throws off my game. Introduces confusing variables into my finely tuned coffee system.
Until something goes wrong. Every now and then, I'll leave the ground beans in the grinder and turn the coffee maker on, realizing my mistake only when I take a sip of hot dirty brown water. Or pour ground coffee into the grinder. Or, as in this case, skip the grinding part and dump the whole beans directly into the coffee maker — the result, I believe, of that bag of ground coffee (Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut. My wife likes it. What can I do? It's her house too). My theory is, sometimes using ground coffee throws off my game. Introduces confusing variables into my finely tuned coffee system.
And at first you feel stupid. Gaze at the mistake with bovine incomprehension. Ah gee, I do this every day. I must be slipping. And then, hurrying to fix it, you realize, if you do something long enough, eventually you'll make a mistake. That's human nature.
Here being a writer helps. Because no matter how good you are, mistakes are always made in writing, and you have to check for them, because they're always there. As I like to say, "Too right is two air." Whoops, what I mean is, "To write is to err." But that's true for life too. Don't beat yourself up over the mistakes. Correct them and move on. Enjoy the coffee, extra steps and all.