Whistling Tea Kettles

It's too bad that our tea Kettle didn't whistle. It always boiled water fine, very readily in fact, but never a single note did it produce in its tea-making experience. This one flaw, combined with spaciness and tiredness on my part, brought its life to an abrupt and unfortunate end Wednesday night.

At about 12:00 am I noticed that my programming homework made less and less sense, so I it therefor was time to make a cup of tea to perk me up a little. I trundled into the kitchen, turned the kettle on "hi", and resumed my glazed staring at the computer screen. The next thing I knew, awful cracking and popping sounds were coming from the kitchen and I knew something was terribly wrong. There being no water left to boil, the stove was now trying to boil the metal bottom of the kettle -- and doing a fair job of it!

"Poop!" I said aloud.

Picking up what remained of tea kettle from the orange burner, I rushed it outside to try and keep from setting off the fire alarm -- not what you need at 12:30 am in a weekday! Of the tea kettle, whatever hadn't dripped into the bowels of the stove stayed on the burner in a flat metallic patty that shined up at me. It took about twenty minutes of open windows and frantic door-fanning (for there was almost no wind) to drive out most of the smoke. And boy did it stink! Burning metal and plastic is rather desensitizing, and the reek of it is staying on my clothes for a while. Ew!

I bought a new kettle for Lily the following evening, and it turns out to be exactly like the old one; it's even the same, exact model. It doesn't whistle, either! Ah, the price we pay for the pleasurable habit of drinking tea. But to keep this element of my life, though, I think I would happily burn tea kettles on a regular basis.

In just a few minutes, I'll have some fine tea-sipping folk arriving at my door, possibly carrying instruments, so I must end this post here. We are going to drink tea and sit around admiring the fabulous Amaryllis flower that has utterly exploded into bloom with blossoms the size of a large hand. (I'm glad that Valerie left it behind for us to enjoy, but I hope it doesn't miss her too much).

I'm now going to put the new kettle so as to be ready for my visitors. Don't worry: this time I will watch it like a hawk!