the pot calling the kettle annoying

(originally posted 2/16/2020)

People who call themselves innovators sure spend a lot of time innovating things that don’t need improvement and not enough time looking at things that do.

I should know, I come from a long line of innovators. How this issue has escaped the notice of my lineage I don’t know but somebody needs to address it before I lose my mind.

Everyone know that the tea kettle was a major breakthrough and I tip my cap to whomever came up with the idea of letting people know when the water has boiled with a whistle but why hasn’t anyone gone any further with it.

I’m watching the end of a basketball game the other day and it’s coming down to the final minutes and there is much drama and I hear the kettle starting to whistle in the kitchen, successfully letting me know that my water has boiled, but I don’t want to miss any of the game so I try to ignore it.

And that’s the problem with kettles. The whistling gets louder and louder and louder and then I’m standing in my living room screaming “Shut the fuck up water!”

Mt great x8 grandfather Aldous Manion was an innovator (for those of you who don’t recognize innovation great x8 means great great great great great great great great grandfather, thereby saving you from having to read the word great eight times… in theory). Why couldn’t he have invented a kettle where the whistling stays at the same level?

Pretty awesome idea right? Eventually someone will invent this.

My great x8 grandfather innovated Christmas, he was the first one to give his naughty child a lump of coal. It was a real breakthrough  in child-psychology at the time. It’s funny how Christmas played such a large role in his life, innovation-wise, because he was killed the next year at a Christmas party. He and another man both showed up dressed as Santa. An argument ensued and he innovated the phrase “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”

So he never got around to fixing my kettle issue, and nobody else seems to have either.

So I’m standing there as the whistling turns into anguished cries. “You’re just water! You don’t have feelings, you’re not conscious” I implore as a player swishes a basket to tie the game with only thirty seconds left.

“I realize” I bellow, “that the transformation from a liquid to a gas might be uncomfortable but….” But I stop because the kettle’s screeching has reached an unbearable level. I’m almost afraid to venture into the kitchen because I assume by now the kettle is bright red and the billowing steam is shooting up to the ceiling and melting the fan and covering the windows with perspiration.

Now I’m certain that no squirrels will ever come visit me despite the squirrel-hole I innovated in my back door. It’s like an opening you’d see for a cat or a dog… just much smaller. I got the idea while watching how cute the squirrels looked as I watched them out the back window one day. An hour later, after removing the door from its hinges and applying a little of the ol’ saw action, I had a way for those little guys to come visit if they had the inclination.

Wasted innovation now that my kettle was refusing to pick a volume and stick with it. Nope, every second that passed the cacophony grew louder. Finally, in a fury at having to miss the end of the game, I ran into the kitchen and innovated/hurled the kettle into the backyard via/through the aforementioned back window.

Scared the living shit out of the squirrels.

The spirit of innovation is alive and well.