Coffee seems like such a simple concoction. Just filter some hot water through ground coffee beans and presto! You have a delicious and invigorating drink.

Then the office coffee maker came along, and an intuitive process became slightly more complicated. You needed to know where to put the grounds and cold water, how much of each to use, which switches to flip and when, and how to clean it after use. Not difficult at all.

Then came that black day in July when they replaced our trusty coffee maker with a coffee vending machine. I was suspicious from the start, and more so the first time it broke down. But at least someone was maintaining it, and so we were trading a bit of quality for the convenience of maintenance-free coffee any time.

At least for a while.

Today, we learn how to refill, clean, and maintain the vending machine, which turns out to be a lot more effort than keeping the traditional coffee pot. So... why is it again that we have a vending machine instead of a coffee pot?

I'm still eyeing that Insert Coins slot suspiciously.