The other day I was puttering about in the kitchen doing what it is I do in there when I knocked my tea pot off the stove and onto the floor. I wasn’t heating water at the time but it had just enough water in it that the mass was sufficient to dent the crap out of it. It didn’t burst and it didn’t spill, because I only buy good quality teapots, but the dent makes it quite unusable.
Some of you are thinking “Norris, fill it with water and put it in the freezer! The expanding ice will push out the dent! You have to do it several times but you can have your teapot back. And if it does crack and leak, you know how to TIG weld and can seam it right back up!” But you may not know that I have recently been wrestling with my own frugal, self-reliant nature. A few weeks ago I had a come-to-Jesus moment where I was about to spend a lot of money on something I would use every now and then but refused to spend a much smaller sum of money on something that brings me great joy and I use almost weekly. A friend of mine called me on it and I "did the right thing" (so to speak)
I’ve gotten off the point. The point is, I messed up my old, well worn, tea pot and it was time to buy another. The question is “What kind of tea pot would you have bought?”
STOP! I know the literalists who read my blog will be saying “I only use fair trade, free range, organically grown, grass fed tea pots from small, independently owned, wind powered tea pot farms in Northern California, because they don’t use slave labor, pay women less, leave a carbon footprint, or culturally appropriate designs onto their cold, soulless, steel, post-industrial revolution, phallic products that glorify the rape of the western European colonial world for the sake of a caffeinated beverage that prevents us from achieving oneness with mother Gaia.” But those people are missing the point, too.
I want to know, based on what tea pot you would buy, what kind of person you are.
What kind of person am I? What kind of teapot did I buy?
I bought the same teapot again (or as close as I could get). I even looked at other tea pots made by fine tea pot manufacturers and I just felt like any one of them was a mistake. I drove the 30 miles to town to stand in a store and look at multiple tea pots that are bought and used all the time by lots of happy tea drinkers and realized that the teapot I wanted wasn’t among them. I wanted what I already knew and what already made me happy. Now, you can read a lot into that. Why wasn’t I excited by change? Why didn’t I try 3 different tea pots and see which one suited me best? I’ve got the money; it's no big deal for a freaking tea pot. Why did I bother to look when I knew what I wanted? Why didn’t I just fix the one I had? It wasn’t hard work or strenuous effort. Why did I make the decision I made and what does it say about the other decisions I make? (Am I being too introspective?)
I have a lot of time to think and lately I’ve spent some of it trying to be more aware of my personal paradigms, the delusions I use to make decisions without really thinking. My teapot just caught me off guard. I do see how my teapot decision parallels other choices I make in my life. There are times I go to a metaphorical store and look at things I could have and even want in my life, but then leave with nothing because I don't see the thing I already know. This paradigm applies to my career, my home, my friends, my relationships, even my future. I guess I should get some new teapots.
So, the question stands, what kind of teapot are you?