A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I bought one of the greatest devices known to the human race. I bought a kettle. It was a mighty device. It was fitted with an internal water filter for filtering pre-boiled water. It boiled water when water was needed to be boiled, and it did the job without complaining. And then it poured the freshly-boiled water without mess or argument.
Fast forward a fairly big bunch of years and I bought a kettle for my girlfriend who lived far, far away in the distant, frozen, north (Nottingham). Why I did this, is a story for another time. But what was logical was that I bought it from where I had bought my ancient but still functioning kettle. This was Sainsbury’s. And from that noble purveyor of water-boiling devices I obtained the same model of kettletech that I had once procured for myself.
Fast forward an even bigger bunch of years than we just did in the previous paragraph, and you will find that this household is still using what was the kettle I bought for Sam. It is in many-times daily use, filtering and boiling, filtering and boiling, filtering and boiling. Except it isn’t.
This morning it refused to engage in its primary function. Refused point blank. The bastard. This refusal to follow orders meant that I was denied my only mug of tea of the day. And denied multiple mugs of hot chocolate. Or was I?
I went into the TARDISS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space Store), a place so secret that I have given it a codename: ‘The Garage’. From one of the many scientific-magical places in ‘The Garage’, I retrieved my original – yet ancient – water-filtering, water-boiling device. I brought it into the house, cleaned it up, replaced the water filter and ran a couple of dozen measures of water through it.
I’m just enjoying a mug of hot chocolate. For an emergency replacement piece of kit, the old kettle has done a reasonable job.
We too have a fancy kettle with a built-in filter (the cartridges add up after a while, don’t they?), and it works very well.
It also has blue LED lights that light the whole kettle when it is on, for no reason other than it looks cool.
But it’s not cool: it’s hot.
Generally.
But, I always keep a back-up kettle in the loft, for emergencies such as yours.
Because that morning cuppa is just sooooo important.
I think the standby kettle might have a limited life. It got me out of a hole straight away, but there might be a need for a new one anyway. But yes, that first cup of tea of the day… 🙂