(Originally written March 29, 2009)

Ever have "one of those mornings"?

Mine started last night when I went to bed.

I slept probably all of 15'. No joke. Reason? None...it's just "my thing". I blame my mother...it's one of the few bad things I inherited from "her side of the family". Everything else she is fond of reminding me comes from "Your Father's side".

Regrettably I am seldom productive during these not-asleep and not-really-awake times. How can I be with entertainment like "Girls Gone Wild", "Shamwow" and "Snuggy"?

But I digress.

So I arise at 6:30am about as chipper as a lump of clay in a rainstorm to start Connor on his way to school.

I get his breakfast going, and then a strong pot of coffee for 'The Zombie'. A few minutes later my budding Mensa candidate comments on the fact that the counter "is steaming".

That didn't really fire off any of the few neurons I've currently got booted up, so I went about my business in blissful ignorance.

He decides it's time to cattle prod me about the counter top sauna.

It's a lake of coffee about the size of...well...6 cups of water...and growing.

WTF? In my apparent delirium I had forgotten to put the top on the pot. You know, the top that has that little bump in it to press up against the "brew pause" mechanism?

No top == perma-pause == a basket overflow.

"Don't panic," I say to myself, "just find the top and pop it on".

Except, what the hell did I do with it? It was completely MIA! At this point I'm seriously considering putting lips-to-counter and slurping up all the caffeinated goodness I so desperately need, and which is nearing a waterfall like drop onto the kitchen floor.

Clever guy I am, I grab a small spatula and maneuver it between the pot and the basket so I can press the brew-pause and hopefully stem the tide by releasing the backup into the pot. Seemed like a good idea until scalding hot coffee flowed down the handle of the spatula and met the tender flesh of my right hand.

Now fully awake and momentarily clearer of head, I again scour the kitchen for the pot top. I find it 6 inches away from the coffee maker under a small towel. Really, I swear it wasn't there before. Honest.

Whew...top goes on, I scrape the overflow into the sink, and turn my attention back to the near-burnt french toast in the pan ($#@!).

I dish up breakfast, and notice that there's more coffee on the counter.

WTF, again? !

Coffee grounds had clogged the dripper and the overflow had recommenced.

With a heave I grab the basket out of the coffee maker and getting to the edge of the sink shout "This is Sparta!" and toss the scalding hot basket in (seems I forgot my earlier lesson).

At which point the remaining 2 cups of hot water with grounds erupts Vesuvius like out of the sink, to the ceiling, down the kitchen windows, and all over both sets of flanking cabinets.

I'll spare you examples of the utterances I spouted forth after that one. I continued to use them all during clean up too. I wrote them down if you're curious.

Sigh. "Can't get any worse", I figure.

At which point I notice that our furnace, which started acting up again over the weekend, was once more cycling on and off, much like myself. When the wind chill is single digits, this is not a good thing (well...is it ever?).

With quiet resignation..well quiet enough that with thermal double pane windows closed the neighbors thankfully couldn't hear me reciting from my list from above, I trod down to the furnace room. From my poking and prodding over the weekend I had somehow managed to get the beast fired up again without doing anything specific that I can recall, so I had left my trusty multi-meter in position so I could quickly probe all the various cut-off switches in the furnace to see if one was stuck should it get constipated again.

Twenty minutes later, according to my meter, they were all stuck and there was no power to the furnace. "Well that ain't right, no sir."

No comments on the fact that it took me 20 minutes to figure that out.

So now I have to test the tester. Turns out the tester was toast, totally.

AAAAGGGGHHH.

I'm thankful I don't have male pattern baldness, but as if this moment you'd never know it.

Of course by the time I figured out the problem with the meter (blown fuse which I of course have no replacement for so I used a piece of aluminum foil in its place...shhhh...don't tell OSHA), the furnace, like Hugh Hefner on Viagra, rose once again to get the job done.

So I still don't know what its problem is. With the furnace that is. I do know I'm really tired, and I really really need another pot of coffee. Or two. Really. And a Snuggy.

PS - don't expect great work from me today. I'm afraid to go near anything. Anything what-so-ever. Except maybe bed.