Hubby and I were invited up to the Online Stores location in New Stanton, Pennsylvania, recently so they could finally find out whose been writing for them all this time. We opted to drive, since the thought of going through the current boarding procedures at airports for such a quick trip did not seem worthwhile, plus we’d get to see more scenery by driving. It was a looooooong trip. And the scenery was great. Of course, this Tea Princess had to bring along her own supply of tea — in this case, it was Barry’s Gold Blend. My foresight paid off since almost every place we stopped had no tea available, not even those cheap tea bags. It pays to plan ahead when travelling.

On our first night in New Stanton we had dinner at a nearby eatery called Eat’n Park (a chain that first opened in 1949 just outside of nearby Pittsburgh and with 75+ locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia). They have a bit of a gimmick: smiley cookies. We didn’t know this at first, but when we went to pay our bill, the cashier asked if we wanted a cookie. We said sure and were presented with two of their very special “pirate” cookies, named after The Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. The cookies were so awesomely cute that we wanted to save them until we got back home. We were sure they would be perfect for a special pirate-ish tea time treat.

The cookies survived our trip home after our meeting with the TEArrific folks at Online Stores (where the main topic of conversation was — you guessed it — tea!). We steeped up some wonderful Borengajuli Estate Assam tea, poured a cuppa, added in some milk and sweetener, and laid out the pirate cookies to be ready for munching.

We turned our backs for a few minutes to put the milk in the refrigerator and, when we turned back, something looked a little…um…different. Hm… what could it be? Then, it struck us. There seemed to be THREE cookies, not two. But that third cookie was not a cookie. It was our little yellow teapot who seemed to have caught that Pirate spirit!

We chuckled and then heard a noise in the other room. We went to check it out and found a couple of teapots engaged in dueling with their spouts. We separated them and returned to the kitchen for our treat. The cookies were gone — well, almost! A tidbit was sticking out of the yellow teapot’s spout, proof positive that teapots do eat cookies. Plus, we discovered that the teapots’ dueling was a distraction to get us out of the room so that yellow teapot could gobble up those cookies.

We should have kept a closer eye on that teapot since the trip to get more cookies would be a long one. Live and learn!

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