The idea for this came when I found out about teetotums (small hand-made throwing dies used in games of chance) and it seemed obvious that one letter changed would give it a different spin. Obviously, they should be used to decide who would make a cup of tea. This may have been inspired by the arduous negotiations that happen between my niece and nephew whenever the subject of a brew comes up.

“I’ll make it if you put the kettle on.”

“I’ll put the kettle on if you fill it.”

“I don’t mind filling it, but I’m not getting the milk out of the fridge.”

“I don’t want milk.”

“But I do.”

“Then you can get it out the fridge.”

“OK… but only if you get the mugs.”

And so on and so on, until the end of time.

My Teatotum is designed to settle some of these debates. Its four sides offer unequivocal directions:

I’ll make it, where the thrower does the honours.

You make it, where the other person has to.

We’ll make it, where the honours are split equally

No Tea, in which case nobody gets anything and ten minutes must pass before the matter is broached again.

(The threat of No Tea may be enough to forgo use of the Teatotum entirely, as it is a situation that everybody wants to avoid.)

The piece is 3D printed plastic and fits into a standard matchbox. I wish the Teatotums themselves were printed at higher… resolution?… but I’d been through many iterations by this point that I had to accept what I was given.

Teatotum prototypes in paper, card, ABS and… some weird resin stuff

This version was a bit bigger and the recessed text might have been an improvement, but it couldn’t be printed in a vertical orientation, apparently, meaning that one side’s text was always mangled.