I got myself a vintage coffee grinder. Yes, grinder with an “e,” not the hook-up app. (Although, frankly, a machine with a built-in Grindr would have made mornings more interesting.) The grinder was a compromise in the ongoing cold war between me and my interior designer. I wanted an espresso machine with a built-in grinder, but he pointed out that it would eat up precious cabinet space meant for mugs and other coffee stuff.
So I bought a separate vintage-looking grinder to match the vintage industrial look I insisted I was going for, then settled for a standalone espresso. When the package arrived, I excitedly tried the hand-cranked grinder right away.
They say making coffee can be a mindfulness activity, so I gave in. I turned the wheel, listened to the beans crunch into powder, and breathed in the aroma collecting in the tiny wooden drawer. Then, after what felt like three harvest seasons, it occurred to me that 7 grams of beans had no way taking this long to grind.
As my arm began feeling the strain, my mind drifted to a Victorian housewife doing this a century ago. Surely this was what Prudence Wobblebottom felt as she ground beans for dear young Berta, whose bread somehow depended on this for their survival through winter.
I thought, I can’t do this every day. Why did I romanticize manual labor? If I had to do this everyday, it won’t be a mindfulness exercise, but rather, catastrophizing. “OMG, my arms are so sore.” “OMG. I’m gonna be late for work.” “OMG, the gears will break apart.”
So I grabbed my phone and looked up an electric coffee grinder. It absolutely does not fit the aesthetic, but I can hide it away while the vintage one stays on display, fooling visitors into thinking I toil day and night, oil-lit lantern by my side, to grind my beans by hand like some Prudence Wobblebottom in exchange for a few pence.
For the record, I am no coffee connoisseur. For the past 24 hours, I have been making terrible coffee mainly to justify the coffee nook I bullied my interior designer into building. My sister has become my test subject, but thank God she has low standards. I hand her anything brown and warm, and she calls it drinkable coffee.
What I have realized from renovating and building a house is that it is basically character development. As I mentioned, I am in a constant duel with my interior designer, who is also a friend, especially when appliances and tech are involved. I am a specs-and-features guy. I see a wow factor and immediately lose all sense of proportion. My interior designer’s job, apparently, is to slap the virtual item out of my cart and remind me, “It’s a 30-square-meter pad. You’re one person. You don’t need it. It will overwhelm the place.”
When I complain to my bestie, he never takes my side, which is rude because that is literally his job. I would ask, “Why are you both antagonizing me?” and he would say, “Because we both know you won’t use it.” Naturally, I would reply, “Watch me.” This happened again when I wanted a bigger TV for the common room and a separate TV for the bedroom. My interior designer wanted me to stick with one 50-inch TV in the common room. So I asked my bestie, “What am I supposed to put on the empty wall facing my bed?” He said, “A picture of Jesus. The Sacred Heart. So you think twice before doing nasty stuff.” This led, as all mature adult conversations do, to us browsing Sacred Heart images and giving Jesus captions. For the one with the judgmental stare: “I did not die on the cross for this.” For the one looking up, almost rolling His eyes: “Oh yes, of course, he did it again.”
This morning, as I was about to check out the appliances in my cart, I actually paused. Not because the Sacred Heart had gotten to me, but because, annoyingly, they were right. The room would look cramped. So I asked myself the worst question a person with an online cart can ask: Do I really need this? I consulted AI, and because this goddamn stalker knows me like it personally raised me, it sided with my friends. I messaged my interior designer and said, “I concede. No TV in the bedroom.” He responded with a GIF of a woman sighing in relief, followed by one word: “Finally.”
I told my bestie about my decision and said it was strange that AI had basically said the same thing he did. For one suspicious second, I wondered if he had hacked my AI. I also told him that when I asked AI if I should get a Switch 2, it said no because it knows I barely use the first one and am not much of a gamer. It told me to put that Php30k toward something I would interact with every day. “PlayStation?” I asked. By then, AI was probably looking for a way to mute me.
Most likely, my bestie is not tampering with my AI. The more painful possibility is that the people around me have been making sense this whole time, and I simply refused to hear them because I was blinded by shiny specs and unnecessary features. Sometimes you really do need to reset, look at your actual life, and admit that the fantasy version of you does not pay the bills or use the gadgets.
So, yes, renovating and building a house teaches restraint. Not everything aesthetic is functional. Not every specs-packed gadget is necessary. Just because you can afford something does not mean you have to buy it. You have to review your actual habits, not the fantasy lifestyle your cart is pitching to you. Sometimes, the smartest upgrade is knowing when to stop adding to cart…and, apparently, hiding the electric grinder before guests arrive.
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