Once upon a time, when Will and I were young and crazy (as opposed to now, when we are middle aged and totally sane) we packed up our ten month old for a backpacking trip around Ireland. It's one of those vacations full of nutty stories. Like the time that I got off a train in Cork to buy a scarf and the train, my husband and my baby left for Dublin without me, resulting in one breakneck cab drive and one mad dash through a countryside zoo to get to the next train station so I could catch them (this was pre cellphone - how did we survive?) Or when we waited in line at midnight to buy the next Harry Potter book from a bookstore in Limerick. When the newspaper came to interview us for being among the first three in line I told them I really wanted to read the book before my other friends, so I skipped a few time zones (which was not entirely true, but I did read the whole thing before the sun came up in America). Or how Briton learned to walk on the green in Wexford and insisted on spending the entire flight home walking up and down the aisles. Also, sharing a 12 bunk hostel room with 10 drunk Australians and a toddler who wakes up at 6 am turned out not to be a great idea.
See? Bat shit crazy.
But that's not the point of this story. Before the trip ever began, we stood in an REI trying to decide how small of a backpack we could get away with to hold everything three people, one of whom was still in diapers, needed for the trip, and listened to the woman next to us explain to her boyfriend that she needed a bigger pack because she could not possibly go to Europe without her hairdryer and her curling iron and her flat iron and her curlers.
I'm not that kind of traveller. In fact, I'm not that kind of girl. You could take away my hairdryer or my curlers or my hairspray forever and I'd be ok with that. I'm not bragging, not at all. Because although I may not be soft and wimpy in that way, I'm soft and wimpy in other ways. I can live without hair products, a dishwasher, a dryer, all those things. But what I could not live without is my electric kettle.
You laugh, but it's true. I've had a plug in kettle since high school and I use it every.single.day. Multiple times a day. In college I could make a fantastic array of food items with a kettle and a rice cooker. I wouldn't have survived without them since I tended to miss meals in the dining hall. It was the first thing I bought when Will and I moved in together. And the first thing I bought when we later (after the backpacking trip) moved to Dublin. It stays with me during moves the way our social security cards, bank info and birth certificates stay with me. It's my desert island appliance. The one thing that plugs in that I would take with me (you know, if desert islands had electricity.)
So when my kettle up and died on me in the middle of making a cup of tea two days ago I nearly cried. No tea! No coffee! (And to make matters worse, we though we had a propane leak and had to disconnect the stove for the same 24 hours so no stove as a back up).
It was not a pleasant day and a half before the UPS truck arrived with it's replacement. (I love you Amazon Prime) I've never been so happy to see a brown box. Not even when it's full of yarn.
OK, maybe I'm still bat shit crazy.
Anyone else have a desert island appliance?