I have a confession.

I’ve only had a coffee drink once in my entire life- a frappuccino at Starbucks, to be exact.

Well, I think it was a frappuccino.

So today when Geoffrey Cooper had the misfortune of having to make a pot after finishing the last cup of Maxwell House coffee, I decided to watch.

 As I watched him pour in the grounds and water, it made me think about myself and my colleagues in the newsroom.

At 8 a.m. we start off with nothing, not sure if the grounds we pour will produce a good cup when the water is finished percolating through. 

Like the empty pot waiting below to be filled, we are never 100 percent sure what the outcome of a story will be. So we begin to pour in the grounds — we make phone calls, we do research, we run around the Big Easy trying to get one drip closer to a good cup.

Then slowly throughout the day, the water continues to seep through the filter as sources call us back.

Suddenly we realize the cup – and the story — may not turn out badly after all. We walk away from the coffee maker, the newsroom, to eat and occasionally breathe. We have moments of frustration because the grounds don’t seem to be brewing and the coffee is taking too long.

The clock ticks closer to deadline and that one source still won’t call back- the coffee’s not quite done.

But as the last few drops fill the pot, I look around to see my fellow students with a little glimmer in their eyes — because today the coffee came out just right.

The source called back just in time and the story is finally done.

And even though it’s not my cup, I can’t help but smile too, because the aroma fills the room and it’s sweet.