Today I woke up 3 hours after Boyfriend had to leave for his Internal Medicine clerkship and went out to the kitchen in search of coffee. Now, we lived together before I left for Metropolis Med, so it only took 10 minutes of diligent cabinet-opening and cursing to determine that, in my absence, he has not only stopped drinking it, but he’s actually gotten rid of the coffee maker. This leaves only the espresso machine, which I have to admit is still a complete mystery to me.
“No coffee,” I thought to myself: “That’s okay. It’s fine. I can watch my embryo lectures without coffee.”
I could not watch my embryo lectures without coffee.
I took stock of the situation and determined it was too sad for words. I googled “how to make coffee on a stove”, and google delivered: it’s apparently called “Cowboy coffee”, is routinely done on camping trips, and sounds very Little House on The Prairie*. I can think of several magazines that would totally write articles on “How to make old-fashioned, stove-top coffee”, take photos to document the process, and make it seem really cute and not sad or pathetic at all.
So I figured, hey – it’s Martha Stewart-ish. I’m gonna make coffee on the stove. No big.
Except, Boyfriend had removed all of the burners from the stove. I think this was part of the whole “cleaning the apartment” thing he does so much better than me (personally, I had no idea the round cooking surfaces of the burners could actually be physically removed, and even less of an idea as to what the hell the poky, wire-y bits were supposed to plug into, or what all of the wires and electrical things under the stove were for and which of them could kill me) – so. Nevermind, cowboy coffee.
I looked at the microwave. I looked at the ground coffee.
You know where this is going: I found a pyrex bowl and made Cowboy Coffee: Microwave style happen. I microwaved coffee grounds and water together until I came out with something that looked like espresso, which means Boyfriend had espresso coffee grounds (you know, I probably should’ve figured that out before this point), which meant that straining them was going to be nearly impossible.
But I did it, damn it. I’m now sipping my microwaved coffee – which is almost entirely free of coffee-grounds, btw – and preparing to get back on those embryology lectures.
I’d better focus like an effing laser beam.
Action Potential 
try a cold brew coffee toddy. nuke your cup in the am. best undiluted. like toothpicks under your eyelids.
Sounds good, might try that…
Oh, the things we do for coffee. One time, I straight up hand-mashed whole coffee beans with a mortar and pestle because at my parent’s house, there is no coffee grinder (well, no coffee anything at all, actually). Then I made it in the microwave like you did and strained it with a paper towel. Turned out revolting and took half an hour, but…mmm caffeine.