It looks innocuous, doesn’t it? After all, nothing about it triggers the “harmful or offensive” sense given by Oxford Languages.
Boy, can looks be deceiving. This mug is definitely nocuous.
I reach into the microwave almost absent-mindedly. I mean, in the last 40 years, how many cups of reheated tea have I removed without incident from microwaves? Many, that’s how many. And so I confidently grasp the handle as firmly as needed to balance this stoneware mug filled with hot liquid, and start to lift.
If I picked up a surprisingly hot rock from the edge of a campfire, say, I could drop it immediately on the ground. But I can’t drop this surprisingly hot mug unceremoniously on the microwave turntable: both are breakable. And so I control my impulse to jerk my hand away from the heat source–the handle–and try to apply no more pressure than necessary to maintain my grip while ridding myself of this unwelcome finger-ful as fast as possible without breaking or spilling anything.
Owie, owie, owie!
Or words to that effect. Damn, that hurt. As I examine my hand fruitlessly for any signs of a burn, I remember a similar I-can’t-hold-it-I-can’t-drop-it moment from about 15 years ago.
Visiting my parents at their assisted-living lodge, I was tucked in at the end of their regular table. The server reached down the length of the table to hand me my plate. With geezers to the left of me, geezers to the right, and numerous plates, glasses, and cups and saucers beneath my outstretched arm, I took a firm grip on that plate. Too late, I saw that the server had a cloth napkin around her side of the plate’s rim.
Owie, owie, owie!
Or some incoherence to that effect. Damn, that hurt.
So, a few things.
What was that then-teenaged-now-30-something server thinking, handing me (without warning) a plate hot enough that she needed hand protection? We’ll never know.
What are stoneware mugs thinking, sometimes getting unbearably hot in a microwave, yet mostly not? Apparently they’re trickier than they look. Who knew?
What was I thinking, committing firmly to that mug’s handle without checking it first? A little tap-tap would have warned me to approach it more carefully. It’s not rocket surgery, you know?
And what other things need some thinking? What else might benefit from a tap-tap before I commit wholeheartedly? Before I grab and lift, only to discover that something is too hot to hold but I can’t put it down?
What actions might want a tap-tap? Joking with strangers who might not share my sense of humour or sense of context even if they share my language; making funny faces/noises with children to whom *I* am the stranger; offering unsolicited political or religious comments in a group? Yeah, likely all of those.
What thoughts might want a tap-tap? Half-informed opinions; uncharitable judgements; casual biases? Yeah, likely all of those, too.
Not everything is too hot to handle. But I can slow down and check more often before committing. The mug of tea will wait. So will almost everything else.
Philosophically yes it might be a good idea to “Tap Tap” before moving into a new situation. No doubt about that.
As for that tea cup…. Having had the acquaintance of a potter for many years, the glaze on stoneware frequently has metal in it. Metal and microwaves don’t mix as you know. I suspect the blue glaze in particular has a good deal of metal in it
Jim R – Whoops! This is me, getting out the large Pyrex measuring “cup” for my tea reheating. Thanks.
Rule of life: new stuff is usually good for microwaving; old stuff probably not. There are just enough exceptions for occasional moments of regret. This feels like wisdom but is not. Just life.
Judith – 🙂 Maybe most of what passes for wisdom is “just life.” I don’t know for sure how new this stoneware is since it isn’t mine, but it’s likely not *really* new. A good rule of thumb. Or fingers, in this case.
I’ve done that with a bowl of soupy oatmeal mush. I … now … only handle it by its top rim with two fingers. Live and learns, eh?
Learned from a travel assistant/steward to Brian Mulroney (when PM) that he demanded his food be so hot it required 10 little cups of expresso delivered every few minutes so it would not cool down. The dinner plates that his very hot food came on were also heated to lava temperature. This steward told me he forgot to use a thick towel — once — when delivering a plate to Mulroney, and that he still has flashbacks of the pain to his fingers. But, even so, he loved working for Mulroney.(BTW, his whole family was taught to eat food too hot to touch,)
Barbara – Live and learn: or don’t. 🙂 Either way, life goes on. That’s an amazing story about Mulroney. My theory (aka whimsical speculation) is that people have different built-in heat tolerances. Certainly the water temperature I find too hot to wash dishes in is the minimum water temp acceptable to some of my in-laws.
Another rule: If not sure, don’t!
From
🙂 Indeed.
Fascinating thread again, Isabel. Funny. But not funny.
I had heard and then noticed the point about blue vessels becoming hotter faster than the food in them when subjected to microwaves. You mention “stoneware” and I have one such mug from a trip to Germany in the mid-60s that overheats dangerously so it, among mugs, does not enter the nuker. Despite my experience as a potter who loved to formulate new glazes, I did not make the connection with metallic ingredients and blues in microwaves.
The Mulroney story is fascinating because a classic line in comedy but apparently in real life, too, is a customer demanding that a waiter return a plate to the kitchen because the food is not hot enough. Is this a cultural or a biological phenomenon?
My husband wants food hot but drinks iced and not so one cancels the other at a meal. That is how he savours those different substances. It’s more like a mantra. I do not understand why he has those predilections, even when most of his food is now liquid. And his insistence on ice prevails even though he has trouble maintaining his body heat and his hands are icy cold most of the time. I have deep misgivings as I serve him but have no science to help me sort out those feelings. Furthermore, I feel I am running risks with the microwave because I have read about and never want to experience the “superheating” phenomenon. “Nocuous” equals “noxious” equals downright dangerous.
Laurna – Who knew blue was so unreliable? Or, I guess, perfectly reliable in not being safe? As for our tastes, my limited knowledge suggests that a lot of them are genetically determined (reports of identical twins separated at birth being found in their 30s to both dunk the same kind of cookie into their coffee – that sort of thing). But of course our tastes are also formed by our communities, which determine the range of acceptable foods for “people like us.” And by our families – consciously or not – for much the same reason, maybe. I’m sorry you’re struggling with what to feed your husband – and how. There’s no perfect answer, I don’t suppose, so maybe “what he enjoys right now” is an acceptable place to land?