The latest from southwestern Massachusetts:

a staffperson, where I am staying, had their parked car covered in ice.
Their standard way to remove ice from covering their parked car,
involves teakettles filled with the hottest water,
amongst other implements.

In the first place, they told me,
it took ninety minutes to get one-quarter-inch-thick ice off the car.
In the second place,
they set the teakettle, a double-chambered-thing, on the frozen ground,
while chipping the ice off of the car.

When they went to pick up the kettle, they told me dramatically,
"it broke in half! I never liked that teakettle anyway . . . "