Hell Hath No Fury as a Woman Who Wants Her Tea

Story Submitted by Alex:

It was my second date with Rita when the tea incident occurred.  I had her over at my house, thinking that I'd make her a nice, romantic dinner.  I started out with a light vegetable appetizer and some tea.

I had brought the tea to a boil and served it.  She sipped it and said, "This tea's a little cold."

I told her, "I brought it to a boil."

She pushed it in my direction and said, "Could you heat it up a little more?  My mouth isn't very sensitive to heat."

This was the first I had heard of this kind of problem, but I wasn't about to argue with her.  I added some water and heated it up, boiling for several minutes.  It couldn't become any hotter unless I turned it to steam, so I served it to her as hot as hot could be.

"Still cold," she said, "I'll just do it myself."

She went into my kitchen, did the same exact thing that I had done, brought water to 100 degrees, poured it over a tea bag, and sipped at it.

She shook her head at me.  "No way this is boiling," she said, "Your oven working right?"

I took the cup from her and tried a taste myself, scalding off a cityscape of irreplaceable taste buds in the process.

"It's really not hot at all," she said, "Would you mind if we went out and grabbed some tea from a Starbucks or a diner?"

It was late and I had dinner cooking.  I asked her if having radioactively hot tea was truly a necessity.

She said, "If you're going to serve tea, you have to do it right."

I offered her alternatives: wine, cranberry juice, coffee...

She said, "I'm kind of in a tea mood now, you know?"

I didn't have such moods, so I couldn't sympathize.  I asked her if we could go out and find super-hot tea after dinner.

"I'm kind of in the mood for it now," she said.

I said, "I don't think that's happening.  Sorry."

She smiled and said, "Okay."

I thought that we were over the tea discussion when halfway through dinner, she stood up and said, "I'm sorry.  Your food is great, but I'm just really in the mood for tea.  I'll be right back."

I was so taken aback that I didn't do much to stop her from leaving.  I reheated her plate and waited patiently for her to return, which she never, ever did.