Not What You Expected
6:30AM. I wasn’t expecting a certain enormous eight-legged guest suspended from the inside edge of the toilet bowl at that particular hour. But then again, any hour is inappropriate for that kind of behavior. He decided to hang around for awhile, hiding in some inexplicable crevice that flushing wouldn’t rectify.
Half an hour later while Puck finished his raspberry yogurt and banana at the table, El Oso brought a heavy load of laundry to the basement washer for me.
“Drain’s backed up again,” he called up the stairs.
Of course. Actually, I wasn’t too bothered. We had lasted about six months longer than I expected this year. Maybe the tree out front had experienced stunted growth during the spring. So while El Oso drove Puck to school, I called the plumber.
A young kid with a pleasant attitude dragged the small monster of a machine into the basement to begin the de-clogging of tree roots from ancient sewage pipes. Sounded more like he was dismantling a locomotive.
By the time he finished, the fat spider had re-emerged from his hidey hole only to die a watery death below. I happened to see his last spasm when I walked by. I can’t say I felt completely guiltless for his passing, although it wasn’t my fault this time.
El Oso worked from home for the rest of the morning and afternoon while I drove to the grocery store and also trashed most of the contents of the medicine closet – I love tossing expired junk – all those exciting Monday-jobs.
Then together we picked up our displeased son from school. Apparently his female buddy had been disturbing his personal space again.
“She pinched my chest,” he said in business-like tones as he passed us in the hallway.
So … part of the drive home focused on the topic of “dealing with little girls and their ways.”
To make up for Puck’s frustrating day, El Oso took us to Jimmy John’s. A ravenous Puck plowed through, I’d say, seven or eight inches of sub before turning over the remains to his dad.
A warm-ish yellow-blue evening in the neighborhood, plugged with mosquitoes. El Oso mowed the yard after enjoying some English-Welsh Minecraft videos with Puck on his phone. All ill feelings of the day smoothed over.