Each evening Nerissa would grind the coffee beans and tip them into the coffee machine in preparation for early morning. Nerissa rose at six and the first thing she did was to turn on the coffee machine. Her husband, Charlie, didn’t rise until seven and usually had to reheat his coffee in the microwave.
Charlie had an annoying practice. If he had an important meeting that demanded an earlier rising, he would not set an alarm clock. Instead, before he went to bed, he would tip out all of Nerissa’s ground coffee beans into the trash so that the noise of Nerissa grinding a fresh batch of coffee in the early morning would wake him up.
“What’s wrong with just asking me to wake you?” said Nerissa.
“This way is just as efficient,” said Charlie.
Nerissa had had enough. The next time it happened, she got in the car and drove to the Early Bird Café. The coffee wasn’t as nice, but it was a lot more satisfying.