So I wake up one Sunday morning (read afternoon) to see she's pulling a Mary Poppins disappearing act on me again. So its just me and Dad in the house. And its almost time for tea. And I knew that Dad was gonna turn into the Scrooge from The Christmas Past (Or was that the Grinch?) if he doesn't get his tea on time. So I do what I do best. I go to my room and send Mom telepathic messages. I would've called her on her phone but knowing Mom, it would most probably start ringing from somewhere right behind me and scare the hibijeebies outta me. My telepathy would've worked just fine if Dad hadn't come into the room with his Great Idea!
The Great Idea involved Me going into the Kitchen and doing whatever it is that they do and come up with his life-replenishing cup of Tea! Me - Kitchen- Tea. Uh, yeah right!
But you do not shake your head or utter any word that may in any sense convey the meaning of "NO WAY DADDIO" in the house during the days on which Dad is tea-deprived.
So in a state of hopeless surrender, I venture into the kitchen. Tea... how hard can it be? I've even made it before like a bazillion years ago. When I poured burning hot water onto my hand and ran around the apartment like a screaming banshee (what is a screaming Banshee anyway?Have to google that sometime) So yeah, can't say I'm an entire amateur in this department.
So I know your either suppose to boil milk or water in it to make tea. Hmm...
Okay so I leave that for then and open the cupboard to find the tea bags. Instead I find like 10 billion unlabelled bottles of brown coloured powder. Awesome.
I do not find any tea bags which is like a huge bummer because that whole tea-making fiasco I had years ago involved tea bags. Tea without tea-bags...now thats like a whole different ball game. Oh well. I'm half way in. Might as well go all the way in and drown and die possibly.
I open up one of the bottle and sniff. Aaah, the heavenly scent of fresh tea. Well, that was probably not fresh tea, but how was I to know what fresh tea smelt like anyway, so this was good enough.
Found the sugar too. And milk too. Ok, so I had all the ingredients. Now I just had to figure out in which order to put them all together. Minutes tick by. Dad gets grouchier. Okay, thats it. There was no use in pretending any furthur that I could do this. I get my phone and call up the next best thing to mom (in terms of tea-making.. well ok in a lotta other terms too :-P).. My sister!
With no time for hellos or you know whats, I explain the situation to her. She tells me exactly what to do. To put in the......um....well ok I don't remember what she told me anymore, but yeah she told me what she told me.
Oh and she told me to put in the tea powder only when the milk starts boiling. I'm like all yeah yeah hey did you see the new trailor of blah blah blah blah.... and whooooop the milk sorta like starts inflating itself and pops outta the Boiler. I put in the tea powder and turn off the stove. The milk stops acting crazy.
Hmmm.. ok, thats it? This is tea? Why is all white? And why is the tea powder floating bout like little blackheads on the top? Ok, maybe I should like let it boil a little longer.
I turn the stove back on and stand back in case the milk decides to jump out on me again. It seemed normal. It was even turning the right color. Yay!
Sis had asked me use the filter thingy to keep out the tea powder because it would'nt get dissolved. I couldn't find any tea residue in there but that was probably because I boiled it twice. Hmm, now there's something I should tell my sister to try. With a smile on my face, I pour my work of art into a cup and stared in horror. What had began as a cup of milk filled to the brim was now 1/4th of a cup of tea. What the!
With no time to ponder over the marvels of evaporation and stuff, I ransack the cupboard and find the tiniest possible tea cup that we owned. I poured in the tea into this miniscule cup which filled up immediate and made the world a happier place for me again.
I place it on a saucer and take it over to Dad who looked like something else that I would refer to as the Boiler now. I hand him the tea and go to my room. The thing with my dad is whatever I do, he praises me like crazy and ends it with "You should've studied to be a ....". So far I've got baker, interior designer, massuese, artist, nurse/doctor, actor, hair stylist, gardener, table setter and food decorator.
So I kneeeew he was gonna tell me how good my tea is and how I should have been a professional tea-maker so I didn't stick around for it. But then of course, exactly three seconds later he calls me back. I'm like "Hoo boy, here we go again!"
Me: Yes, dad?
Dad: Hmm, this is really good, dear, but umm...just a tiny little thing...this is Coffee. I asked for tea.
Me: Whaaaa? (splutter, gasp, splutter)
Dad : But thats ok. Its still good. You could like start a little cafe and make coffee professionally. Its really good.
I'm like..I couldn't even think of what to say. How?? How could that happen?How did my tea turn into coffee? I put in tea....didn't I?
Apparently, I can't distinguish between the smell of tea and coffee. So the "heavenly scent of tea" was really the "heavenly scent of coffee". Which also explains the whole magically dissolving "tea" powder. Oh well. At least Dad seems happy. And whats the lesson that I learnt from this? That I apparently can make super good cafe-type coffee. Yawn... so what else is new?
