This morning I am thinking about my coffeepot at school. My coffeepot is unsafe. 

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this: at my last school, coffee pots were unsafe unless they were industrial or restaurant grade, which basically means they have better safety features, automatic shutoff in case of a power surge or a short circuit, and whatnot. Don’t want my coffeepot starting a fire. Sure, whatever — but they overlooked those ancient overhead projectors, which, if you’ve ever stood in front of one, you know heat up to at least 836.9 degrees Fahrenheit, so. Maybe the coffee wasn’t the biggest risk.

Anyway, I heard that my coffeepot was unsafe a few months ago when the health inspector said I couldn’t sell coffee to students, which I had been doing as a fundraiser for the English department so I could buy extra copies of books and such. I don’t have a food handler’s license, so I cannot prepare and serve foodstuffs to the public. Don’t want to get any salmonella in their coffee. I also heard that coffeepots needed to be secured so that the students couldn’t spill hot coffee on themselves as they walked by, nor pick up the glass carafe and smash it over their own heads in a fit of teenage pique.

So I stopped selling coffee to students (Some of whom are still heartbroken, and still ask wistfully if I will sell them coffee) and moved my coffeepot behind my desk, where students never go. For two months, it’s been sitting on the floor, where, presumably, nobody will spill the hot coffee on themselves, nor easily fall onto the carafe and get glass shards embedded in their innards.

Yesterday I got an email informing me that my coffeepot was unsafe on the floor, that it needed to be on a desk to minimize the risk of hot spills and “electrical” risks. Apparently the chances that coffee will pool under the machine and work its way into the insulated power cord are greater when it’s on the floor. (By the way: it sits on a carpet. I suppose that increases the risk of toxic mold.) I just wish they had told me that when it was on the desk.

Actually, I wish they would just come and tell me, “You can’t have a coffeepot in your room.” They wouldn’t really have to explain; the health inspector didn’t explain, he just said, “You can’t do that.” The fire marshal at my last school who informed us that coffeepots in the classrooms had to be industrial grade didn’t explain; he just told the school that that was the law, and the school told the staff, since there were four or five of us who had personal coffeepots. Actually, they wouldn’t even have to speak to me directly: I’m an introvert, I’m a writer, I prefer email. Love it. It’s the best thing to happen to teaching since tenure.

But they didn’t do that. The email I got informing me yesterday? It was actually a general warning to all the staff that they can’t have coffeepots on the floor. For all of us who are making that same mistake, so that we know this is not an acceptable situation, because of hot spill hazards and electrical hazards.

Want to guess how many teachers in the school have coffeepots on the floor? Scratch that: want to guess how many teachers have coffeepots?

Yup. Me. Just me. Worst part is that I walked into the room while the two administrators who did the safety inspection were walking out, and I asked if they were looking for me, if they needed me for any reason, and they said, “No, just doing a safety inspection.” Two weeks later, general email about floor coffee.

So this morning I am annoyed. I am extremely careful with my coffeepot, simply because it is precious to me: it makes the coffee. That’s the only thing that keeps me going. The coffeepot in the teacher’s lounge is a Keurig, which means I can’t make a pot and then run down there between classes and fill up my cup; I have to make a fresh cup, and with four minute passing periods and a hall full of students to navigate, I just don’t have time. It also means huge amounts of waste, and the genuine risk of toxic mold and just disgusting nastiness inside the machine, which is impossible to clean out properly. I am honestly not sure now what the answer is, what will make my school happy other than me simply getting rid of the coffeepot, which is clearly what they would prefer.

But I’m not going to do it. Not until they come speak to me directly and tell me to do that.

If they do, I will offer them a nice cup of coffee. And then smash the carafe over my own head.**

**Because I once nearly got in serious hot water (HA! Get it???) for making the apparent threat that I would “shove a desk down a student’s earhole,” I would like to make clear that this comment about the carafe-smashing is no more than a poetic way to end the post. I do not in any way intend to commit violence against myself or any other person, or my coffeepot. Though I will absolutely be putting salmonella in the coffee from now on.

**!! UPDATE TO ADD: There was a new email this morning.

“Hi All