Notice how the cheap metal pot sitting on my non-Martha Stewart stove in my kitchen is not perfectly round? How it’s all warped and oddly bent and has a darkly-stained bottom? That’s because every day I boil water for tea and then I go back to the computer to write something, and then I come out of my writing coma 15 or 20 minutes later and the water is all boiled out and the pot is just taking the heat.

So I pick it up with a pot holder and pour cold water on it and the kitchen fills with steam. I have done this, no exaggeration, about 40 or 50 times now, which is why this pot is totally baked and about to be tossed. I’ve already ruined two Bed, Bath and Beyond pouring pots this way…nice ones too. The kind that whistle when the water’s ready, I mean. And even when they were whistling I used to ignore them so I could finish the thing I was writing at the time. So it’s not cool and pretty stupid, really. And I’m just admitting this, M.Night Shyamalan-style.