Tempest on the Teapot (PG-13 rated post)

Banner morning yesterday - I was able to access the AP scores of my Calculus kids, and they did great. I felt great. Some of the I'm-too-smart-to-do-homework kids failed (good lesson), and some of the kids who tried like crazy even thought the class was insanely difficult for them passed (even better lesson!).

I decide to be Irish and have a cup of tea. There's a teapot right there on the counter. It's resting on some kind of plate-like thing that's plugged in. Oh, I think, it must be a hot plate? I turn it on and quickly touch my finger to the plate to test it. It's completely cool. Hmm. I wait a bit and touch the plate again. Still, nothing.

Well, I'm not going to waste my time trying to heat up water on that thing. Must be some Irish gadget I don't understand the purpose of. But the old-fashioned way always works. I turn on the stove and put the teapot on the burner.

Minutes later, Kaia asks, "Why does it smell like burning?"

I turn around to look at the stove and there are white plumes of smoke emanating from its base like it's the damned space shuttle about to take off. At that point, things got a bit chaotic.

First, I made sure to utter a word that should never be heard by my children. Second, I thought, oh shit, Jodi and I just bought a new smooth stovetop like this one, replacing the top costs a mint, oh shit, oh shit. Then I pulled the teapot away from the stove and, though the metal part came with it, the black plastic that it turns out the bottom of the teapot was made out of stretched into threads like you see when you lift a pizza slice out of the box. I was about to put the teapot in the sink and then I thought, wait, I don't want melting plastic to come into contact with the sink because what if it somehow ruins the sink? But wait, it needs to stop burning, so I run it under the water for 15 seconds or so, then I drop it into the sink. Meanwhile the kids are freaking out because they think the smoke alarm is going to go off, a noise they are petrified of. "Daddy, Daddy, is the smoke alarm going to go off?" They start crying. "Daddy, we're going to go outside, ok? Ok?! Daddy?!" "Yes! Yes! Go outside!" I turn on the fan to get rid of the smoke. "Daddy, the door's locked! The door's locked! Unlock it, unlock it!" "Wait, just wait, nothing's dangerous." OH SHIT, I realize, I never turned the stove off! I turn it off and there's remnants of black plastic teapot bottom all around the burner I was using. Oh shit, ok, shit, in it for $1,000 probably, shit, I need to clean it right now. "Daddy, can you open the door?" "There's no need to go outside, you two, everything's ok!" I get a paper towel to clean the stove and realize it's still flesh-burningly hot. Ok, um, pour water on it. The gigantic hissing noise and great plume of steam that results from this sets the girls off again. I open the windows because it smells like someone just set fire to automobile tires inside the house. More water on the stove until it's cool enough I can touch it. I get the black plastic off it for the most part. I eventually figure out I should put the teapot outside so whatever carcinogenic fumes it's giving off can benefit the whole community. And the kids calm down when they realize there's no fire and no smoke alarm.

One observation: turns out I am not Jason Bourne.

One question: why the hell didn't someone tell me there was such a thing as induction teapots? Frommer's is going to hear about this, you can bet your sweet dill pickles on that much.

Michael