Kettle Chemistry (and Comedy)

If you are a fan of older sitcoms, you know the humor found in household activities gone awry. You understand how the dishwasher or the washing machine, overflowing with soapy suds, is hilarious. You get the idea that a precious item, accidentally dropped in a running garbage disposal is tragic, but can be played for comedic results. You giggle at the very idea of an out-of-control garage door remote causing the door to go up and down randomly. It’s always SO funny when it happens to someone else, on television – not so much, when it happens in your own house, in real life.

My shiny, clean kettle, after the fact

This morning, I decided to clean the hard water deposits out of my electric water kettle. I read the directions on the back of my Lime-A-Way. My biggest concern was whether it would permanently leave a poison residue in the kettle. Lime-A-Way is pretty caustic, and I definitely wanted to be able to use my kettle again. There were two sets of directions, one for a tea kettle and one for a coffee pot. Since my unit is kind of a hybrid between the two, I pondered which set of directions I should use. I decided on the coffee pot directions, which had me put a 1:8 solution of Lime-A-Way to water in the kettle and then run it through a cycle. I stood by my pot and waited for the water to come to a boil. The solution inside was sudsy, and as the water heated up a few suds bubbled out of the spout. I used a paper towel to wipe them off. The liquid continued to heat, and as it did, the suds flowed more freely from the spout. I giggled and thought it was a bit funny. I assumed it would be a short-lived phenomenon and that the suds would all be used up and gone quickly. It was only a 1:8 ratio, after all.

We all know that I wouldn’t be telling this story if everything had happened the way I thought it would. The suds came faster and faster as I wiped faster and faster, reaching for more paper towels. All of a sudden, the liquid inside the kettle boiled. This kettle IS DESIGNED to boil water, after all. At that precise moment, there was a change in what was coming out of the spout of the kettle.  That toxic concoction inside the kettle was FLOWING freely from the spout. As a science experiment, this overflow would easily surpass the energy and visual impressiveness of the classic baking soda and vinegar volcano. It was ridiculously effective, and the BOILING water-solution was going everywhere. I managed to shut off the unit, at which point the flow of the boiling liquid ceased. I was left with a yucky, HOT mess all over my counter, which I quickly cleaned up. Here’s the part where you can laugh, point fingers, shake you head, and wonder where I left my brains this morning. I pondered the question of WHY water would come out the spout, and no good reason came to my mind. “It must be too full,” I hypothesized, as I poured some of the liquid down the drain AND STARTED THE KETTLE HEATING AGAIN. Since the solution was already very hot, it boiled quickly – becoming exactly the same bubbling cauldron of doom, spewing freely all over my counter once again.

Ahhh. This was a good lesson for me. Once I cleaned up the mess a second time, rinsed out my kettle multiple times, and proceeded with the rest of my morning activities, I had time to think about the folly of my morning adventure in chemical warfare.  It didn’t take me long to see the similarities between this toxic mess I had created and the areas of sin in my life. There are times when my sin starts out by appearing kind of humorous, but as things heat up, the dangers become obvious. And sometimes, I think I might be able to control the consequences of a sin when I really should know better than to dabble in that particular activity at all. Sure, I can (and must) clean up after myself – but wouldn’t it be smarter just to stay away from the toxic chemicals of sin in the first place? I will be reminded of this lesson every time I heat up my water in my electric water kettle. God is clever that way.

By the way, did you know that when you change the viscosity of the liquid you are boiling, the action it produces when boiling also changes? I learned more than one lesson this morning.

O God, you know my folly;
    the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. 
Psalm 69:5