You got to be kidding me...

I decided to clean my coffeemaker today. It's probably needed it for weeks now, but I was spurred into action by a conversation at school the other day. The campus is across the street from a local independent coffee shop called Misha's, which is a hipster hangout straight from central casting. The problem: their coffee tastes like it was made with a used oil filter. People who otherwise sit around talking about how corporations are killing America will walk six blocks to Starbucks just to get a halfway decent cup of coffee. There was once a Dunkin Donuts as well, but it closed just before their coffee became cool.

Anyway, I theorized that Misha's coffee tastes so burned because they never clean their coffeemakers, which logically implied I should finally clean mine. Now, I've long since lost the manual, but allegedly this is done by running a couple cups of vinegar through it. So I did that, ran one full pot of water through to rinse it, and then made a pot of coffee that smelled like paint thinner. I didn't really need to taste it, but did anyway just for kicks. Bad idea!

So now, 5 or 6 full pots later, what comes out finally smells like normal hot water, but the port where the water goes in still smells like vinegar. Which leads me back to the title of this post. All the smell testing has really cleared my sinuses, and also reminded me of an incident waaaay back in 7th grade. In those days, long before Columbine or even political correctness, we kids were actually left alone with a science class supply closet stocked with hydrochloric acid. Through the agency of a classmate who was known for pranks, some of that stuff found its way into a glass dish and under my nose, with the admonition "hey man, sniff this water, it smells kinda funky" ...one giant snort and my nose has never been quite the same!