Listen to yourself.  A little creative trick which you may enjoy using.

   I've previously suggested using yourself as a study object in the art of 'people watching'.  It's not narcissistic, just convenient sometimes to set a small part of your mind aside to record how you do the everyday things in life.

   But today I listened to myself.  I was making the drinks when Alma called something from the front room.  I called back "If you were talking to me I can't hear you properly because of the kettle, Pet."

   As I walked around the door to see what she was shouting about my subconscious replay told me I'd said 'kettle pet' without the comma.  Kettle Pet?  This triggered a bizarre conversation with my daughter about what exactly a Kettle Pet might be.

   It's a small creature which lives in a kettle.  It loves boiling water.  It gets noisy when its hot, and very noisy when it's boiling.  Sometimes it even whistles.  When the water is really cold they hibernate.  Etc, etc.

   In the end we decided it was something like a secretive and very small octopus, which could hang on with its legs and not get accidentally tipped into your cups.  It was translucent when merely warm but brightly coloured when boiling.  Which didn't matter because nobody looks into a boiling kettle.  When the kettle is really cold it becomes totally transparent for perfect camouflage. 

   I may write a kids story about Kettle Pets later.  I suspect the one in my kettle plays 'bucking bronco' on the stainless steel anti-limescale collector roll that lives in there and bounces around noisily at boiling point.

   There you go.  Listen to your own words sometimes.  Who knows what strange creatures or situations may emerge.

   Gyppo

 ;D Only a writer could get so much mileage out of two little words.

Great advice, Gyppo.  ;)