O, potwash boy, o, potwash boy,
How lovely are your teapots.
They are so sparkly and so white,
I wish that I could marry you.
O, potwash boy, o potwash boy,
How lovely are your teapots.
(To the tune of, ‘O, Christmas Tree.’)
Now, before you judge me, let me just ask you this. Haven’t you ever been overcome by the sheer sparkly whiteness of a well cleaned teapot? No? Well then, my dears, you have simply not lived.
A teapot is a difficult thing to get totally clean, due to the tea’s fondness for discolouring things. I love a good cup of tea. Love it. But sometimes the tea just makes everything brown and tea coloured – the teapots, the mugs, people’s teeth.
When the potwash boy came to work on Tuesday, I had decided that from this day forth, I would no longer stand dirty teapots. Poor potwash boy. As soon as he arrived, I was like, “Today, we must clean ALL of the teapots and they must not be tea coloured anymore!”
He said he could do it for me and I should leave him to it. I wandered off, keeping a sneaky eye on the teapot challenge, expecting them to be returned a little stained still but hopefully an improvement on the previous situation.
And my god, was I blown away! These teapots SPARKLED! They SHINED! They were like artwork. I fawned helplessly over them, like a lovesick teenager.
“They’re beautiful!” I gasped, looking at the potwash boy, with love in my eyes. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Every time I popped my head round to offer him a cup of tea (which he refused), he was scrubbing a wall down or taking apart bits of machinery to clean down.
I was left stunned, especially considering we’ve never taken that hot metal plate thingy apart before.
It was only shyness that stopped me from asking for his hand in marriage.
What if my teapots aren’t sparkly enough for him? I wondered. What if I don’t take my kitchen apart regularly enough to clean it? No, I’m not good enough for him. He’ll never marry me. He’d see my tea stained mugs at home and run a mile.
And so for now, I just dream. I dream about sparkly clean teapots and milk jugs with no dried milk crust around the edge, about soap and hot water and yellow washing up gloves.
And I am happy.
lazylauramaisey 