Friday, October 8, 2010



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LAST NIGHT I WRAPPED UP a birthday celebration with a late-night bowl of spaghetti and a Black Forest drink.

It was a delightful ending. It had been a perfect beginning (after days of drizzle and rain)!


And there was a very nice scattering of good things in the middle!




But then this morning, though the day's beginning was just as sparkling as yesterday's, things went awry! I was awakened by a phone call on my little white rental-business phone. The message: "This is (make up a name, Dear Reader, any name) in Apartment 64 (fake number). Uhm, I was just callin' to let you know, uhm, there's a little situation goin' on here I'd like to discuss."

Turns out the situation was the payment of rent (or non-payment, as it currently stood), and a roommate unwilling to divvy up her share. "She says she's going to move out this afternoon, but she already took some things and stole some of my dishes, too! And, also..."
Okay, it was downhill from there. You don't want to hear it.

Here at the house, a plumber was expected at 10:00 a.m. to coerce my water softener into doing its job. (My dishwasher stubbornly refuses to do its job while the softener's playing hooky). So I went to the basement to tidy things up near this piece of machinery (This area of the cellar is the yard man's domain, and the dirt is more dirty than one might expect!)
As soon as the plumber had finished his job, I would check out things with (name you've concocted, Dear Reader) in Apartment (fake number) and I also had other pressing errands to run (I was playing hooky yesterday--justifiably so, [I felt]).

But did that plumber show up as expected? A call came at 11:15 from his office:"He'll be late!"
He got here at 1:25 p.m. Uh, huh.

Out the door I rushed, but without my cell phone. Where had I put it?!
I scurried all around. Had a little meeting with (your chosen name) tenant and the roommate (who lo-and-behold showed up).
Went here. Went there.
And came home to search for my cell phone again.

I looked: Through my purse--dumped out the contents twice.
Through the trash--dumped out the contents (yeech!) only once.
Through the bedcovers; pulled off the sheets, shook out the spreads, lifted the mattress,
looked at the piles of dust underneath the bed.

By now, of course, you are clambering to ask me: Did I try to call my cell phone number from that little white business phone?!
Well, alas, you see--I had bound and gagged that cell phone when I went to the movies last night! (That's where my yard man took me, since he hadn't hired a band, or arranged a dinner with the queen [O'b and Michelle were busy]), though he had brought flowers.)


I took a break from the search, and paid the demand for money that I found tucked under my windshield wiper yesterday (oh, the birthday surprises!)
Then I called and arranged for a steering column upper bracket adjustment to my car (oh, the many Toyota recalls!)
Then I went to the mailbox and gathered the mail
(oh, the wonderful belated birthday cards!)

Then I took up the search again.
Through cupboards and drawers.
Even in the fridge (who knew?)

Finally I just quit looking. "Tomorrow I'll get a new one," I said to the yard man when he came home. "I suppose I'll have to. I'm so tired of looking!"

"Okay," he said. "Did the plumber show up? Is the water softener fixed?"
And down the steps to the basement he went.


Hmm.
The. Basement.


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