It's happened once again. I get 1/2 through dispensing my cup of brew from my local coffee shop's coffee urn, and find that there's nary enough coffee to fill my cup!

Who knew? Well, no one - and how would they? The coffee urns in ALL of my favorite local coffee houses have NO INDICATORS to tell the staff or coffee connoisseur that they’re running low on juice.

In fact, it’s become such an issue that I now find the following on a sign adjacent the coffee urns:

"When coffee pots are empty, please put on the bar"

Clearly, someone needs to come up with a better system. Perhaps a self-aware electronic coffee urn that pages the staff when it gets below 1/4 full would do the trick. That way the staff can start brewing before the coffee runs out!

Well, a smart coffee urn does *sound* like a good idea... but as with so many good hi-tech ideas, it would go wrong more often! Sometimes there's an argument for keeping things simple...