Dear Mr. Coffee...never again

I bought this Mr. Coffee coffeemaker on February 2. Today is February 18 and if I had time to go to a store, it would be in the trash already.

When my old Mr. Coffee took a crap after two years in 2007, Harry had found an old percolator when we were moving to the farm. I believe it was circa 1970s due to the ugly floral motif on the side. BUT, that percolator made the best coffee I'd had at home in years - until it finally died a few months later.

Enter Harry's Hamilton Beach coffeemaker. It wasn't very compact but it had all the elements we needed: automatic start, auto-shutoff and reliability. And it was reliable until around the first of the year.

Our coffee routine is simple: I set up the coffeemaker before I go to bed so that the coffee is ready when Harry gets up at 1:00 a.m. to go to work. He has time to drink about one cup and fills his sippy cup with one for the road. That leaves at least a half-pot of coffee for me and unless the cat crawls on my head to wake me up, I try to sleep until 5. Even if I wake up at 3, the warmer has shut off by then. I usually put my first cup in the nuker to warm it up and turn on the burner on the coffeemaker to warm up the rest of it.

We'll forget the fact that maybe I should just make him a half-pot and then make fresh when I wake up.

So, around the beginning of the year I noticed that the warmer didn't always come on when I turned it back on. There were also a few times that I tried to make another half-pot because I was in a mood and it refused to work. I'm used to intermittent wipers but an intermittent coffeemaker is a bad, bad thing.

Timing happened to be working that I had to take Dad to Columbus for a doctor's appointment on February 2 and lo and behold, there was a K-mart right across the road from the office. PERFECT! We went in, headed to the small appliances and I looked around. There was a Hamilton Beach coffeemaker exactly like the one that had just breathed its last - well, almost exactly.

It was red. Never in the more than 25 years of having my own kitchen have I even remotely considered the possibility of decorating with red anything. It would look great in my SIL's kitchen with all of her apple-y decor but not in my log cabin with custom knotty-pine cabinets.

Besides, black hides the splashes better - I'm just being realistic.

So, I selected this compact Mr. Coffee coffeemaker because it had a timer and auto-shutoff. It was $29.99 and when I got to the register, I found out I had $8 in K-mart rewards. Woot woot!!!

Since I brought home this machine two weeks ago, I've not had a decent cup of coffee. Twice in two weeks, the filter has bent over when I move the water arm over it, leading to grounds floating outside of the filter and not only dripping into the coffeepot but just making a general mess inside the basket-holding area. A mess that takes forever to clean because of all the nooks and crannies and the fact that wet coffee grounds are akin to Cream of Wheat - they keep multiplying.

I tried to blame the constant dribbling from the spout on the fact that it was designed by a right-handed person with no consideration for the left-handed consumer. I tried pouring with my right hand and still dribbled everywhere. These aren't drips, they are dribbles. Then, I told Harry about the messy problem and he's having the same issue.

The spout on the carafe is too small - it is intended for people who don't need a cup of coffee in them in order to pour a cup of coffee. It is so small, you can only pour slowly, gently. I want my coffee and I want it now.

So, Mr. Coffee, while I can't return this P.O.S. machine to K-mart because I got rid of the packaging and, honestly, with the price of gas it's not worth the trip, I wanted to let you know that I will never buy anything branded Mr. Coffee again.

DISCLOSURE: Obviously, this product review was not paid for by the Mr. Coffee company. All opinions expressed are my own.