My sister teaches 5th grade. Those children are about 10 years old, and they have a lot of imagination, energy, and the attention span of a gnat. Every year, she teaches about the American Revolution, and she begins with a challenge to the hyper-active kids about uses for tea bags. She arrives with English Breakfast tea bags (this is a hint of what’s coming) and the kids work in groups to come up with novel and interesting uses for the bag of tea. They may include the packaging in which the the tea comes. They are not allowed to use the obvious, which is, making a hot or cold drink, with or without honey and lemon.

Ok children…….ready?

GO!

Here is the 5th graders uses for tea bags:

1. a pillow for your pet mouse
2. use the inside aluminum packaging to signal when you are stuck in the mountains taking your 92 year old grandma on a hike, and you have lost your way. Oh, where are those boy scouts?
3. yo-yo replacement string
4. cat litter. You will need more than one bag of tea unless it is large.
5. cleaning windows. Once again, you may need more than one bag, unless you are really efficient. 
6. air freshener. Really????
7. a lasso for a mouse. Is the mouse being lassoed or is the mouse the perpetrator, lassoing his fellow mice?
8. half a pair of earrings
9. toothpaste, or is that teeth-paste? That’s a sister joke. 
10. use the tea bag string to floss your teeth.

Then my sister announces one last use for bags of tea: overthrowing a government, and with that, she begins her chapter on the American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party.

Tea and tea bags are so versatile, like Duct Tape, WD-40, and staples, for hems that sag. History is pretty versatile as well.