Brit here! Last time I broke a kettle I just resorted to boiling water in a pot on the stove. If that broke, then… maybe I could find a gas camping stove? Never Microwave
If the kettle breaks I get out the backup kettle (it doesn’t automatically switch off though.)
If that breaks, I guess I could use the folding kettle that I take on road trips.
If no electricity, I do have a stovetop one.
On the train to town, early morning, pissing it down so everyone smells like wet dog, pretty packed but you manage to get a seat on the end of a 6 seater section. There’s space in the middle as well but you don’t wanna cramp window person.
The train pulls in to the next stop, and fills up. You get asked to move up to make room for someone to take the third seat on the end of the row. Ordinarily you’d keep the end but becuase its so packed, you move down to save a fight.
They sit down.
You hear the heavy laboured breathing, then come the sniffles and the cough.
You shallow breathe.
Lastly, you smell the Eucalyptus breath from the person next to you and think…
It’s me tomorrow. I’m done for
The teapot table is empty of friends.
“Hmm, I can get the bus or the train between where I live, and where I’m working tomorrow” you think, weighing up your options.
“The bus is still capped at £3, but takes two hours - but the train is only one hour, but costs £35”.
Deciding you might prefer the quicker journey, and possibly an extra hour in bed, you dutifully spend £35 on your train ticket.
You wake up in the morning, and double check the timetables.
CANCELLED. RAIL REPLACEMENT BUS SERVICE. NORMAL FARES APPLY.
You realise you’ve spent £35 for a 2 hour bus journey.
Fuck this makes my blood boil lol
I don’t get why a train ticket is more expensive. It should be a more efficient transit. Do they like subsidize the bus more or something?
Buses are currently subsidised, with a £3 cap. However this is typically across cities and such, not cross country, which can cost more. It’s also per bus, and I imagine in a 2 hour journey you’d be taking at least 2 buses. A lot of buses these days will upgrade you to a day ticket when you take your 3rd ticket, if you pay by contactless and tap on/tap off.
Coaches are a different thing (big RV type buses, rather than city buses which are more accessible and have standing area), and they’re typically an alternative to trains, and only handle city to city routes. They aren’t capped afaik. When you get a rail replacement bus, usually it’s a coach, except for short distance replacement services.
The sneaky thing is that, even though bus fares are capped at £3, bus companies could well be putting their prices up massively behind the scenes, paid for by the taxpayer. They’re certainly going to be demanding more to cover the rising price of fuel. Instead of this price being up front to the public with ticket price increases, it’s now a backroom negotiation between the bus company and the government.
yeah like near me middle distance train vs bus the bus is a bit cheaper but the train is waaaayyy more roomy and a much more pleasant experience. Like going home from college there were these charter type ones that were much cheaper but they did specific friday/sunday weekend jaunts and then a lot when breaks came. These were all sign up ahead so they pretty much were maxing out seat usage.
You go round to someone’s house and they offer you a brew and when you take a sip you realise it’s Tetley
Or they ask how you like it, and you say, and then they do it wrong and you don’t want to complain so you just drink it, then they make you another one and do it wrong again and by that point it’s far too late to say anything.
Next time (and every time) they see you, they say “don’t worry, I remember how you like your tea!”, and they say it so joyfully, so happy to have remembered, that you feel it would break their heart to correct them. You continue to drink the wrong tea.
Years later, you sit, sipping your piss-weak overly milky cup of tea, that you hate.
(if your hated cup of tea is different, feel free to imagine that instead).
You look up, as your child asks you and your partner “How did you two meet anyway?”
“Well, I always knew how they liked their tea!”, says your partner cheerfully.
“Every morning and every teatime for twenty years, I’ve made them the perfect cup of tea, just how they like it!”
You go to a friend’s house together. The friend asks how you like your tea, and you have to tell them the wrong tea as well to maintain the lie. This location is now also burned.
One day, a family member comes round and makes you a cuppa the way you actually like it. You now have to gaslight your sibling into thinking they did it wrong. The seed of doubt is planted in your partner, but will never be mentioned.
Hahaha. Brilliant!
A perfect British horror story! (or dark comedy, perhaps).
Oh god I’m going to have nightmares
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Once someone offered me tea, put milk in, then the hot water, then brewed it with a teabag after the milk and poured sugar in out of the bag
This was at an event thankfully so I just ran away when they weren’t looking
I like tea. I take tea seriously. I spend way too much time, money, and effort on tea.
That being said … insufferable snobbery is met with a war crime.
- Microwave a mug of water with a lipton tea bag in it. Allow to steep at boiling for way too long – we want all of the tannins.
- Add a little baking soda “to make it sweeter”. Call this step “a secret real tea enthusiasts use to unlock the flavor”.
- Ask if they want milk, lemon, or sugar. Provide imitation lemon juice (from a bottle), non-dairy creamer, and aspartame.
- Ask if they want a little salt. Act confused at their confusion.
- Take a sip and call it “a proper cup of English tea.”
Was this not a thing a pair of yanks posted online
Mate that’s truly terrifying
I once had a friend do something similar, but she is Chinese and it’s already a war crime in their eyes that we add milk, so of course she didn’t know how to make it properly. I guess this other girl (was from here) probably wasn’t a tea drinker and just didn’t know
¯\_(ツ)_/¯Yes I suppose we should be patient with other cultures
Yeah, I think the chinese might make “milk tea” in a similar way? But their milk tea is a different thing (some are actually very nice)
I used self service at tesco. Its small, cramped with an awkward layout. I was also having a shit day and all in my own head.
By the time I finished and turned to leave there was a queue. Which I may have not seen from the way I approached the tills. A minute or so had gone by so I couldn’t even tell if I’d accidentally skipped the line or not, and if I needed to apologise.
Instead I left feeling absolutely ashamed of myself and wallowed in mortification. Just in case. Can’t be to careful eh?
Once outside of the UK I was part of an orderly queue to get on a bus, and someone (who was fully aware of the queue) just walked right to the front and got on and nobody said anything. This was years ago now and I still sometimes think of the audacity lol.
Your username GURL did you hitchhik.exe ?
There’s only one biscuit left. It’s a rich tea
Dracula?
you can no longer make the hard k ka sound.
