I was in the middle of something in another room and it occurred to me that this familiar expression could be adapted for ADHD: A watched pot never catches fire. Good reminder to exercise a little extra caution in the everyday tasks that get boring but are still dangerous if you get complacent. Driving, cooking, poking around in a running computer with screwdriver even though you know you should shut it off, that sort of thing.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to cooking breakfast before the “food is done” alarms start going off throughout the building.
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I don’t know. I was making rice today and the moment I left kitchen (for a nano second, of course) it burned.
Here’s my today’s rice recipe:
- put some oil in the pot
- put a cup of rice and set the heat to max
- add salt, a clove of garlic and a couple of cardamom seeds
- mix until rice changes colour
- think how well you have everything under control
- blink (I swear the new avatar has nothing to do with it!), take the burnt rice off the stove and throw it away
- realise I forgot my medication
- take another pot and repeat the steps, but avoid blinking
- when drive changed colour, add 1.5 cups of water
- reduce the heat and cover the pot
- realise that the pot is too small
- pour everything into a bigger pot
- add heat
- blink and realise the water is boiling out
- move it from the heat, reduce the heat
- wait
- wait some more
- move the pot back but turn the heat off
- wait 15 minutes
- rice is done!
- realise it’s not salted but take the win and feed your child
“A watched pot never boils … over”. Everyone omits the last word. Because if you have the pot on sufficient heat, it doesn’t matter if you watch it, physics gonna physics.
I don’t think “A watched pot never boils” was ever meant to be taken literally. The way I see it its more in the sense that if you just stand there looking at it the time it takes to boil will feel like forever.
I see some results for that and, as it turns out, a similar version that I’ve probably heard before but forgotten: “A watched pot never boils but an unwatched pot boils over”.
