Ode

My tea kettle has died.

I first realized that something was wrong about a week ago – as water reached a boil the whistle began by sputtering before going into a slightly lower tone than before. I inspected the stained top and the mottled bottom, but found no cracks or oddities. In the same way that my right knee has become a little creaky and in the way that Pop Rocks just don’t taste the same, I decided, the kettle is aging. That’s fine – it’s not old, it’s just older.

It is blue and of the variety that has no lid – it receives and evacuates water through the same spout. It belonged to my old roommate Joe. When we moved, he was ready to throw it away; his new home had plenty of dishes. I would have let him, I’d left my kettle at a house where I’d lived before. But I went to retrieve it there, saw the state that it was in – lidless and rusty where the paint had chipped – so I claimed Joe’s kettle.

Since then it’s been the same old story (albeit at three different houses). It waits on the back burner, ready to boil water whenever the need for tea surfaces.

Today I washed it, scrubbing the outside and thoroughly rinsing out the inside. I opened the spout and peaked inside – there was a pinprick of light, a tiny hole. I filled it with water and held the kettle out in front of me. Alas, a little stream of water peed into the sink from the hole.

So, anyway, I guess I’ll have to get a new one.