Imagine the scene if you will. It is the first morning in your new house. The sun streams through the curtainless windows. You pick your way among the packing cases to retrieve the stove-top coffee maker, grinder and coffee beans you have wisely kept out of the hands of the removal men.
You take extra care in the preparation of your first coffee in your new home: this is both a significant ritual in taking true ownership, and an urgently required stimulant. You turn to place the coffee maker on the gas stove and, to your horror, it passes right through to sit on the gas ring below. At first you are disbelieving. And then your weary brain pieces the facts together. And you are led, despite yourself, to a horrifying conclusion: your coffee maker doesn't fit your new stove. Or rather, your new stove doesn't fit your coffee maker.
In mounting panic, the options flash through your mind: should I phone the lawyer and try and reverse the purchase? How long will it take to get a new cooker? Where is the nearest good independent café, and could I negotiate a contract for them to deliver to my door each day?
And then, unbidden, an extraordinary thought enters your mind. You cannot explain where it came from, only that if offers an escape from the crisis that has engulfed you. You reach for your smartphone, and open your Amazon app. Struggling to think of the right search term, you eventually alight upon `gas ring reducer', and the images that appear before your eyes are like dry land to a drowning man.
Simple, cheap, effective, with neat little retainers to prevent slippage. Silver rather than black, it is true; and after a few uses: blackened silver. Not pretty, but what is that stands between a roaring flame and a metal base?
And who cares? You can stay in your house. Your children can attend their new school. Your marriage has been saved. And you can make a perfect cup of coffee whenever you like.
You are Lord of the rings once again.*
*Based on a true story. Any resemblance to a normal person's reactions is completely coincidental.