Picture me drinking tea. Lots of tea. I'm reading a Paul Russo book and it's a coolish evening, QLD fall/winter. The pot is empty, the story is very capturing right now and I need more tea (I'm trying to lose some weight by not snacking and not eating absent-mindedly while reading; Tea is very effective for me in this regard). So more tea I need, and my Bodum pot's strainer gimmick is full with compressed used tea leaves.

So I skip off to the toilet to empty the strainer of the leaves. Compressed leaves are very restrained in leaving the strainer (pardon the bad pun). Shake, Shake. Plunger in one hand, strainer thing in the other. Shake. Come on. Shake, Shake, SHAKE. "It would be bad if I dumped any..." kerplunk

...

Well, I guess I'll boil this plunger in bleach before I use it again.

(Which reminds me of the time my boss told us that he'd accidentally dumped the pager in the loo. We all hated the device for messing up our sleed but nobody had ever immersed it in piss before. After drying it out the pager worked for another few years...)

But, being a "belts, suspenders and backup" kind of person I have another complete strainer set ready. Water's boiling, so I'm off.