Ode to a tea kettle (okay, not really an ode... just a fond farewell)

I’ll never forget when I first saw you.  It was November 1996 & I was on my lunch hour, browsing the kitchen gadgets at Kaufmann’s, looking for a small coffeemaker for my grandma for Christmas.

It was love at first sight.  I’d recently moved into a new apartment, and was on the lookout for “Southwestern” items (which was popular at the time but this was still before the internet & ready access to everything).  Anyway, your terracotta color was just right & I loved your style!  I thanked the Kitchen-Aid gods for this match made in heaven & snapped you right up.

You didn’t do much but sit there and look good.  (I had just recently become a coffee drinker, that Mr. Coffee I also bought for my grandma?  My dad told me to return it, Grandma had to cut back on the caffeine.  I kept the darn thing instead and got hooked on cofffee.)  But you still came in handy for the occasional cup of hot tea or cocoa and when you whistled I always came running! 

I loved you to pieces—as it turns out, quite literally.   

One night in 2002, my girlfriend at the time wanted a cup of soup.  We were watching tv when we heard a loud hissing noise coming from my kitchen—aw no!  It turned out you had a rusted hole on the bottom.  My local hardware store got me some heat-resistant touch-up enamel, but it was too late, your insides were rusted too.

(I learned a valuable lesson, don’t leave water sitting for days on end in a teakettle; it will pretty much eat thru anything metal.)

But gosh, you were like an old friend and I couldn’t bear to throw you out.  So there you sat on the back burner, year after year.  I got used to heating my water in the microwave instead, which is just fine I suppose… still, you’ve been out of commission a long time now.  Over ten years.  I have to let you go.

Mister Funky Burnt-Orange stainless steel teakettle, you’ve got a lot to live up to.