Time for Tea

I have an obscure addiction to cleaning unexpected items throughout my home.  If there is hair in the drain of any sink or tub, I will roll up my sleeves and stop at nothing until the last strand is out.  It is not unusual to find me on my hands and knees working vigilantly picking crud out of the many cracks in my wood floors.  Goop in my washing machine makes me smile.  Mustard stains on a white blouse?  That is so kindergarten.  Bring me the farm toilet with years of lime scale and lord knows what else.

Case in point, the morning marathon of cleaning my vintage ceramic tea pots.  It started with a simple act of forgetting to clean one of my pots, which was half full of tea, sugar and milk.  Not sure how long the two cups that remained had been percolating, but it was a fuzzy mess by the time I got to it. 

It started with a simple rinse and scrub.  It was clear, a soak in warm water with baking soda was needed.  Like everything else in my day to day busy it life, the tea pot was forgotten until the next morning.

Imagine how my heart skipped a beat the next morning when I opened the lid and found what looked like transparent tea leaves floating in my pot.  I put everything else on hold.  The kids were making their own breakfast that morning. I was on a mission.

Upon further investigating, it was determined the floaties were coming from the spout.  Oh, I just get all goose pimply thinking about what awaited my eyes when I looked down that spout.  White ceramic merged with countless years of tea leaves and stain.  Sure, the average Josephine might be thinking, “Yuck, I let my family drink tea from that?”  I shrug it off as to, “We seem to be just fine.  I’ll make it clean like the day it was made.”

I start with a stronger soak of vinegar and heaps of baking soda.  While it soaks, I look for various items that will fit down the spout and the tiny holes into the body of the pot.  Anything from pipe cleaners, old paint brushes, toothpicks and even a chop stick will work.  When I come back with my tools of the trade and look into the lid, I find even more gunk.  I am ecstatic.

An idea pops into my head, perhaps my other two tea pots need to be cleaned as well.  I soak them and become giddy when looking into the pots an hour later only to find a great deal of sludge.  

After spending the better part of a day cleaning, digging, scrapping, rinse and repeat with another soak and admiring all the slop going down my drain it hits me.  Yes, this brought me great pleasure tackling the nasties out of three tea pots.  My pride over flows with how much money I saved because there was no need to buy expensive products.  However, I missed the best part of my day, spending it with the two best kids ever.  That is priceless, and if time is money?  I should have just bought a new pot.