Teabags

The evening fell apart, however, with the great tea fiasco. Giles, attempting to make the last pot of tea before bidding his guests farewell, accidentally dropped a tag of one of the teabags into the pot. Simple enough to get it out, he thought. With swift thinking he grabbed the closest spoon and went for the errant tag. No sooner had the spoon struck the surface of the water than he realized that said spoon was his peanut butter spoon, which he thoroughly licked whenever he was in the process of enjoying his favorite snack. Realizing that the tea was now doubly unfit for human consumption due to the contamination of the tag and the spoon, his thoughts turned to disposal of the tea. He grabbed the tags that remained external, and began to lift the bags out of the pot, bringing his left hand into position to catch the drippings from the bags. At this point he realized the water that was now dripping onto his hands was too hot to allow him to accomplish removal of the teabags to a disposal container, and he swiftly removed his hand from underneath the teabags. Not that that action helped either, for now the tea dripped from the elevated bags onto the front part of the pristine white porcelain pot. Now thinking more clearly, he began to retreat his attacks, and returned the teabags to the pot. Slowly he processed the situation, and realized now his best course of action was to pour the tea itself out before removing the bags. The which he did, but in the small tea-parlor sink, thus managing to spill some on his black suede shoes. Paralyzed by the mental stasis of sleep deprivation, he finished pouring, noting that for some reason the teabags did significantly slow the last part of the process. Finally, he had emptied the pot of contaminated beverage, and was ready to remove the bags. The first two came out easily and were quickly relocated to a rubbish bin. The last one, however, was more stubborn. Thanks to its errant tag, it was now slumped in the lower front part of the teapot, where the tea enters the spout. He had to extract it with his hand, a task not helped by the relative size of his hand to the top opening of the pot. As he transfered the bag from the pot to the rubbish, with the bag grasped between two fingers, his foot caught the edge of the carpet and he stumbled ever so slightly. This misstep, however, and its resulting jolt, was sufficient to cause him to close his hand ever so slightly, but sufficiently to cause the teabag, which was facing Giles, to split and explode. Wet tealeaves and droplets of tea went everywhere; most notable, however, were the marks that now covered his white shirt and pants, as well as his well-kept face and hair. Knowing that his guests would notice even if he changed into a fresh set of the same clothing, he called his wife's cellphone, and in a sickly voice gave her their pre-arranged "emergency" story. Mrs Giles then relayed to her guests the news that her husband the host had suddenly been overcome by food poisoning. Having heard the sickly tones of his voice in the quiet living room, and that he had eaten lunch with a very important client from China who insisted on dining at a Chinese restaurant, the guests left without concern for the tea they had so grievously been deprived of, their minds now fully occupied with the thought of how many 'dear' friends would be interested in the story of Mr Giles' involvement in the Chinese restaurant business. And Giles, knowing they would tell everyone they knew, was content in the knowledge that no-one would hear of an inconsiderate omission of the last round of tea, or a strange brown speckling on his clothes as he bade them farewell.

I found this randomly sitting in a google doc of mine, and decided it should be published. It is inspired by a true story, and, as with most of my creative works, by an interesting idea for an opening line, from which the rest of the story naturally flows. I'll leave it to the reader's imagination as to how much is inspiration and how much is true...