Being stupid is expensive.

I'm off to a rough start in terms of brains this year. First I forgot about the price increase on a convention membership -- a convention I'm on staff for, no less. And then there was the cocoa. See, the whistle on our teakettle has been broken for years. The kettle works fine, you just have to stand there and watch it until it steams enough to know it's hot. No problem. Except that watching water boil is boring, and I had a lot to do the other day, so I put the kettle on and popped out into the other room to do just one quick thing -- on a computer, no less. You can see where this is going, can't you?

Fortunately I did no worse than to melt the enamel off the bottom of the kettle and onto the burner. Both burner elements and teakettles are replaceable (albeit not as cheaply as one might like). And the stove got a good cleaning and shiny new drip pans (the getting of which was an adventure in itself) while I was at it.

So now I am having my test/celebratory cup of cocoa, from the new kettle on the new burner over the new drip pan. And nothing is melted that shouldn't be. ;-)