It’s like 1773 … only worse

Make no mistake, beverages are extremely important to me. More important than most other comestibles. Since I was nine years old and I discovered on a life changing trip to Canada, that people drank things other than water. Hot chocolate. Every afternoon. Just because it is nice! I was hooked from that moment. You can enjoy a drink, a bit of pause to your life. Before I left school I was drinking tea every day, then coffee, then gin. Well you get the picture.

Recently my office consumption of tea has plummeted. This has also made my afternoon productivity plummet and I am a desiccated husk of my former self. Why not just go and get tea? They have those fancy zip taps in your office surely, I hear you ask. Well yes, of course I could travel the corridors to the ridiculously disgusting germs death trap   less than sparkling clean space with taps and pour horrid over boiled stale water in a cup but I would rather poke my eye out with a sharp stick. The worst part? I thought I’d solved this problem by providing for myself a life saving capsule. An office so well equipped, I rarely had to leave it. An oasis of beverage heaven. Nice cups and saucers. Water. Tea leaves. And a kettle. It is very clean and has nice flowers. You could almost live there.

 Last year, after I installed myself  in my newly acquired glass box, I bought a shiny new kettle and installed it. I filled it only with filtered water. I boiled it. I was happy. I could have a decent cup of tea, one of the six kinds of tea I have on hand in my office, whenever I wanted. For a year, this was perfect. I’d visit the zip tap once a day. I’d fill the jug, and get drinking water, and then I’d return to my office and beverage heaven and I was happy. I was well. It was lovely.

Until last week. I entered the office. It was Monday. I had a bunch of flowers under my arm. For a Monday, all was well. Then I tried to open the door. It was strangely dark. The lights were off. The automatic door wasn’t opening. Hmmm. My computer didn’t work. There was no power on one side of the building. Men were called. I went to meetings. Lots of meetings. When I returned, a terrible thing had happened. The kettle, my kettle, was in the frame for blowing a fuse. I was instructed to remove it. I denied all responsibility. Pointed out it had been there for a year. Stood around an huffed, to no avail. The kettle was doomed. And now, so am I. To be a desiccated husk.