In the annals (or is that anals?) of the trivial,* surely this column about preventing your teabag tag from falling in your cup merits some sort of award.
The writer, John Kelly, wrote an earlier column about some of life's very minor annoyances, mentioning this among them:
"I hate it when Iām making tea and I pour hot water into my mug and the force of the water disrupts the tea bag so much that the little paper tag at the end of the string ā which I have carefully positioned outside the rim ā is yanked into the mug and ends up floating there like a man overboard."
So OK, a little whimsy now and then isn't a bad thing. And I magnanimously assume Kelly, who seems ot have a functioning brain capable of getting him to work every day and holding down a job as a newspaper columnist, is referring only to those very occasional times when he forgets to do the obvious, i.e. to hold onto the tag while he's pouring the water. (Mars to humans: Alternate solution: put the teabag in after you pour?)
But maybe not, because apparently, many readers wrote in to share their ingenious (or is that ungenius?) ways of dealing with this "problem."
My question: Seriously?
My other question: Are any of these folks thinking of running for Congress? Maybe as tea party candidates?
*Disclaimer: Fear not, loyal readers, the irony of critiquing triviality, when "The Tin Lizard" itself thrives on the trivial, is not lost on the Liz. Read this as commentary on the futility of the human condition, but not on the futility of trivia itself (themselves).