How strong do you like your morning cup?

Breakfast with Walt Kowalski on Saturday and Sunday mornings is a treat.  Weekday mornings are precisely timed and allow for very little room for deviation.  If truck warming is needed, that's 5 minutes earlier I add to the wake up time.

But Saturdays and Sundays are different.  We still get up and go, but we always allow time for breakfast together.  Even if it's just peanut butter toast, coffee, and tea. 

Last Saturday, Walt Kowalski walked down the driveway to get the newspaper while I made breakfast. I turned on the coffee pot, put the kettle on to boil, and got out the toaster.

I like to make my tea in a large 4-cup Pyrex mixing cup.  It's clear glass, doesn't stain, it's tempered (so no fear of a cup breaking from the boiling water) unlike some of my fancy cups, and if I have some tea left over, it can go into the fridge for later.

I do the same thing every time I make tea.  Get the mixing cup out of the cupboard, set it on the black griddle section of the stove, get the teabags out of the pantry, get a tea cup out of the cupboard, pour boiling water over the teabags and wait for the tea to brew.

While the kettle is heating, I make the toast.  Bread toasting is such a wonderful smell.  Today it was toasted bagels with a little scrambled egg on the side.

Not long after we sat down to breakfast I could smell a stink bug.  It wasn't an overwhelming smell, but I knew it was close.  I figured I accidentally stepped on one.  Not and uncommon occurrence at the Cat Ranch.

None under my slipper.  None under the newspaper.  Sniff, sniff, the smell passed.  Oh well, it will turn up. 

A few minutes later... sniff, sniff.  I could smell that bug again. 

Then nothing. 

A few minutes later...sniff, sniff, I could smell that bug again.

It was very strange that the smell kept coming and going. I must be brushing up against it.

By this time I had finished my toast and only had a swig of tea left in my cup with a little left in the big Pyrex mixing cup.

On that last sip of tea in my cup, when I brought the cup up to drink, I smelled the stink bug aging.  Now, without the smell of toast, I smelled my tea.  Sniff, sniff... stink bug!

It wasn't floating at the bottom of the teacup, but yet my tea smelled. 

The kettle.  Nope.  Stink bug free.
The mixing cup.  Ewwwwwww.

There, belly up, was one freshly brewed stink bug.  Gag gag gag.  That bugger must have crawled into the cupboard and then into the mixing cup.

Walt Kowalski said 'You might want a little extra gargle with the mouthwash today.'

Needless to say, I now look in all cups and pots and pans and casseroles and coffee makers before using them. 

This has been a public service announcement.