Coffee and Cooking Catastrophes !

I have a terrible time making coffee. One would think it easy, but in the history of my coffee-making, here are all the mishaps that I am guilty of:
- pouring the water straight into the coffee filter (this was the very first time I ever made coffee!)
- leaving the empty coffee pot on for an extended period (days) of time. (sshhh.....my Dad still doesn't know!)
- leaving the coffee grains in the filter and forgetting about them over Christmas break.
- carelessly placing the filter so that a side sagged down allowing grains to flow through the coffee.
- never measuring precisely, ending with either extremely weak or extremely dark coffee!

But...I am improving!

Sherlynn, my roommate, takes great delight in experiments--especially those that involved food and drink. This week, we have suffered through 2 of them.

1) When went over to our friend's apartment to use a "real" kitchen, only to find out his oven didn't work. I was awfully disappointed because I was going to make garlic bread. (Note: Garlic Bread in the microwave only becomes soggy and chewy--yes, both are possible at the same time.) Sherlynn was disappointed because she was going to make brownies. Well, she decided to make brownies anyway.....in the microwave. Unfortunately, she did not stir them well enough for when she ate her piece of brownie (which we called 'brake' because it was in the shape of a cake), she bit into a piece of uncooked chewy egg! GROSSE! My piece was alright. (Note: if making brownies in microwave, mix well and eat immediately, for they will turn rock hard within a few minutes of removal!)

2) Sherlynn was craving some hot chocolate, but was curious to see how it would taste in coffee. But instead of simply mixing it together once the coffee was made, Sherlynn dumped the hot chocolate powder into the coffee filter with the coffee grains. The end result was pitiful. The water piled up in the filter and only a trickle made it through into the pot. It literally smelled like creamed corn.