How to Brew Coffee Using a Broken Coffee Maker

I don't mind spending money on appliances. I understand that if I want a coffee maker, I have to pay for one. If I want two coffee makers, I have to pay for two coffee makers. If I want three coffee makers, then I have to pay for three coffee makers. After that, if want more coffee makers, I should probably be able to negotiate a deal for a quantity discount.

However, I only really want one coffee maker. One that will last as long as I do. That's not so much to ask for, is it?

Well, maybe. Or maybe not.

There are people who make a living producing and selling coffee makers. If you and I buy only one coffee maker per lifetime, then they will be very poor. They might even go out of business. All their employees will become jobless. There will be a great depression. It will be all our fault, because we didn't periodically go in and buy another coffee maker, even though we have a perfectly good one at home.

The workers of the world have nothing better to do with their time than to produce things that people don't need, and there is no better way to feed the masses than to keep making people buy the same product over and over and over again.

For the sake of the toilers, I should probably be happy to keep buying the same coffee maker as many times as it takes to keep everyone else in coffee makers. Otherwise, there might be deflation, and that would be bad!

What is deflation, and why is it bad? Deflation is the opposite of inflation. In an inflationary economy, you have to spend your money today, or it will be worth less tomorrow. In a deflationary economy, money that you have today will buy even more tomorrow, if you can bear to wait. More food. More health insurance. More houses. And, yes, more coffee makers!

So, if you and I and everyone else refuses to buy a coffee maker today, tomorrow we may be able to buy more coffee makers for the same amount of money. And this would be bad, why?

Well, clearly because of the toilers. The toilers are people who always spend everything they have, so they require a steady income, and they will do almost anything to get that income. They are addicted to work, because they need their money fix. If you give them money, they immediately go out and buy a coffee maker, whether they can afford it or not. That's why they never have any savings. And that's why everyone needs to buy coffee makers in order to give them something to do.

So, we people with savings but no income need to buy coffee makers so that other people with no savings can have income to buy coffee makers, too. How awful it would be if some poor family (one with an income much higher than mine) had to go without a coffee maker, just because you and I and everyone else decided that we were not going to ever buy a coffee maker again!

Have you ever gone to Wal*Mart and seen all the coffee makers available? They display them quite prominently. When I first noticed that display, I thought: "Those must be for people who don't have a coffee maker yet. People who have never bought one before. Lucky for me, I already own one."

Then one day, my coffee maker broke down. It refused to make any more coffee. And I suddenly remembered that this was not the first coffee maker I had ever bought. About five years ago, my old coffee maker broke down, and I went and replaced it with a brand new one. Were they expecting me to buy a new coffee maker every five years? I didn't budget that in, when I retired.

Are all the retired people supposed to keep the younger generation in coffee makers by buying them over and over again? Is that how the economy works?

I'm very weak willed. I probably would have rushed out to buy a new coffee maker the moment the one I have broke down, if it weren't for one thing: I am confined to the pens. Without a babysitter for Bow, I can't leave the house. And I needed coffee right away. I couldn't wait!

Necessity is the mother of invention. "I wonder how this coffee maker works, anyway," I thought. "I think it involves boiling water in some way."

It just so happens that I have an electric teapot that boils water. I boiled the water, then I poured it into the paper coffee filter of my non-functioning coffee maker. The boiled water dripped through the coffee grounds, and voila! --- There was coffee in the pot.

I have been using my broken coffee maker to make coffee in this manner for the past month. The coffee is excellent. And guess what? If the electric teapot breaks down, I think I remember how to boil water on the stove. And if that breaks down, I can use my fireplace to boil water.

So, you and I and all our friends can "whip inflation now" by refusing to buy any more new coffee makers! We will shut down the motor of the coffee making world. The coffee maker industry will collapse. The workers will all be laid off, and the money we have stashed in our mattresses will buy more stuff. We will get rich quick by refusing to spend more money.

Let's start rampant deflation now. Non-workers of the world unite! Let the strike begin...

(c) 2010 Aya Katz