Pot, Cook!

Once upon a time—well, it wasn't actually that long ago. Maybe just a little while after the revolution, there was a family. It was a period when modern conveniences like microwave ovens and deep fryers first made it into the world.

And this family decided to get exactly such a deep fryer because they were tired of burning everything over a fire pit in a cauldron or on a pan. So they headed to the first electronics store and, after some careful choosing, they indeed purchased the pot. Full of joy and self-confidence, they brought it home and began unpacking. Once everything was successfully done, they excitedly stuffed into the pot whatever they could find around the house.

They turned the knob and waited to see what would happen. After about half an hour, when absolutely nothing was happening, the head of the family, Pepa, scratched his head and said: "This isn't working, something is seriously wrong." For a while, he tried tapping the pot from all sides, and when that didn't help, he resorted to shouting: "Pot, pot, cook!"

Yeah, but the pot, as these things go... nothing, absolutely nothing. The family sat at the table and put their heads together. After three hours of racking their brains about where the catch was, Pepa said: "Well, Jaruna, there's nothing we can do, the pot is just broken."

Jaruna was all sad that such a good buy immediately had complications. She started to cry and sob: "I knew it wouldn't be that simple."

So they emptied the dear pot and packed it up completely. They grabbed the box and hurried back to that electronics store. Right from the doorway, they started yelling at the clerk: "Hey! That pot you sold us doesn't work!"

The clerk looked at the family with distaste and took the pot from them. After unpacking it, he plugged it into the socket and—lo and behold—the pot lit up with all sorts of indicator lights. The clerk looked at those fools and smirked: "You say it doesn't work?"

The whole family immediately turned red. Such a banal thing as plugging the pot into the electricity—it hadn't occurred to them. The pot found itself back in the arms of the dear family.

Jaruna immediately loaded it up again with everything she found nearby, turned the knob, and the pot started working.

The family cheered and danced around the pot. After this ritual, everyone went about their business and left the dear pot to its fate. Well, since they had thrown in everything they could, including baking powder, you can imagine what the pot created. After an hour of uncontrolled cooking, it began to bubble, and everything inside bubbled right out.

Soon the kitchen was full of it, then the hallway, and finally, it spilled outside. Pepa, who noticed first and turned pale at the sight, started screaming: "Pot, pot, stop!" But the little pot didn't care much and kept acting up. It probably would have turned out even worse, but as soon as that nasty mush got into the circuits, the dear pot short-circuited, and that was the end of the cooking. The result? Our family went back to the fire pit and the old, proven cauldron.

The bell has rung, the story is through, we don't want the pot, and neither should you.