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.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad to hear from you and appreciate the time you take to comment.