It all started innocently enough. I was lurking on gmailswap.com with a few gmail invites ripe for the giving. A poster on the message board was willing to swap a recipe for sweet tea for a gmail invite.

I liked the swap. Firstly, it was something useable, unlike those stupid Orkut invites (where the blogsnobs live…you know…the ones who do nothing but blog about blogging day in and day out?). Secondly, I have a spouse from the South — land of Sweet Tea (though I call it iced tea) — and I’d like to be able to make some once in a while, you know?

So I respond to the gentleman, he sends me the recipe, and I send him a gmail invite.

It’s a hot, sunny Saturday. Thor decides he’s going to mow the lawn. Nice! I decide to make some sweet tea for him! And so it begins.

Printed recipe in hand, I head to the kitchen. Start some water boiling, then start unwrapping the Lipton tea bags. Carefully, I place the 29 tea bags (funny…I could have sworn I opened 30 bags) into the boiling water, leaving the tags hanging over the edge of the pot. For easy removal of the bags, right?

Wrong. Instead, a tag hits the electric burner eye and ignites. The other 28 tags also catch fire. The flames of HELL shoot up about 8 inches high. With great alarm, I take the pot by the handle, take it to the sink, and run cold water over the flames. Fire extinguished.
I return the pot to the stove, making sure that tags are nowhere near the eye. Unfortunately, my hands were shaking from the trauma, and I sloshed tea all over the cabinets.
And the stove.
Undeterred, I finish the recipe and pour the results into a kicky plastic pitcher that I bought at Target. The WD-40 makes Sweet Tea go down easier*.
End result: Thor loved it. I have about an hour of cleaning ahead of me. And as for tea bag 30…let’s just say that Max found it for me. (sigh)

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