Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Hot Pot of the 80's

No, I don't mean marijuana....

I went to college in the 80's. Just typing that sounds so bizarre, so very retro.  But it's true. I went to college in the 80's.

One of the appliance staples in a dorm room back then was the "hot pot".  You know what it is. It is one of those appliances that looks a bit like an old coffee percolator but it heats up hot water.  Those things were great.  You could boil noodles in them for macaroni and cheese, boil water for hot cocoa, etc. 

I'm not really even sure if ramen noodles had been invented yet in the 80's.  Or maybe their distribution channels had not reached as far as Wisconsin. Because I have to believe, if ramen noodles existed in the 80's, I would have been eating them in my little dorm room at UW-Whitewater! But I wasn't. So obviously they hadn't been invented yet, right?

My daughter is finishing up her senior year of high school and will be heading off to college herself this fall. I am so excited for her. I am also trying to prepare myself for life without her (my favorite person in the whole wide world) being here in this house everyday! 

We've been working on the prep stuff since summer; picking things up here and there on clearance, working through the list.  We have already purchased sheets and comforters that will fit the Twin XL beds in the dorms and are discussing the need for a refrigerator and microwave.  Today as I was wandering through Wal-Mart, I came across the "hot pot" appliance.  Ahhh, it brought back memories.

One of the memories that still makes me laugh pretty hard is starting up the "hot pot" one night to make macaroni and cheese while I studied. For some reason I had set it up on my roommate's dresser. I remember hearing this strange noise and I look over and water was shooting out of the spout of the "hot pot" and making a perfect arc directly into her closet!! Luckily, with some quick foot action and the grace of God, the macaroni-laden water didn't get on anything in her closet. Note to self, do NOT overfill the "hot pot" or the boiling water turns into a geyser of hot water and half-cooked macaroni.

So I see this similar device in Wal-Mart and picked it up to look at it. A cordless kettle. That's interesting. If there is no cord, does it run on batteries? That doesn't seem quite right. I read down a little bit further and it says, "Convenient Cord Storage". What? If it's cordless, why on earth do you need convenient cord storage? So I chuckled to myself and I took a couple of photos (see one below), put the "hot pot" back on the shelf and moved on. 

If my offspring, does indeed believe that a "hot pot" is something she would like to have in her dorm room, (I hope so!) we will do some comparison shopping and find a dandy one, fitting of the year 2012.

College...... it's funny the things you remember about those years!!  Wal-Mart..... it's funny what they sell!


Keep on smiling!

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