26 February, 2009

Does This Happen To You?

You're making coffee, right, and you stand there all impatient, talking to the kettle to make it hurry up, because your two guests are in the other room and while you're making coffee you can't entertain them. When the kettle is finally boiled, you have your three mugs all nicely prepared with the coffee, milk and sugar in them, just waiting for the seductive caress of scalding hot water.

And at the moment you're about to unleash the tide of erotic wet heat onto the eagerly awaiting coffee crystals, you spot An Ant.

There's a bastard of an ant on the handle. This can only mean one thing.

There are likely to be more ants in the kettle, freshly-boiled.

So you unplug the fuçker, and frolicking around in the tide is one lonely, six-legged cast member of A Bug's Life.

Every fibre of your being desperately wants you to fish that damned creature out with your fingers, and it takes enormous restraint to remind yourself that dude, that's boiling water. So, eyeing its location in the pool, you take hold of one of the mugs and pour really, really slowly. Any time that Insektor gets near the spout, you stop, and kinda swish the water around like a whirlpool to try and get him away from the cascade section. (You know, like when you were kids and you went over to Matthew and Stephanie's house and you played Whirlpool in their pool where you all run as fast as you can around the edge, to spin the water around and around as fast as you could and then you'd stop running and just float around in circles thinking you were way cool? Yeah.)

When you successfully manipulate the bug away from the spout, you carefully finish pouring the water. Yes! You rock! Mug #2, however, doesn't quite go as planned. By this time the stupid ant won't move away. Your hand automatically comes up, to fish it out with your fingers, and then you remember, dude! Boiling water.

Removing the gatecrasher now necessitates Sacrificing Some Water, as you try to tip the ant out into the sink. You do this with a minimum of wastage, and as you pour the second mug, you totally congratulate yourself for being fuçking awesome.

Your two guests' mugs are now done, and you reach for your own. (Because your mother always taught you that you serve guests first, and yourself last.) And your guests are waiting in the other room for their coffee. But as you tip the kettle you come to a sinking realisation.

The Water Sacrifice has left you without enough water for your own mug.

Does this ever happen to you?

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