I was much more interested in the death and burial at sea of Bin Laden than the wedding of Kate Middleton. I tried to find some interest. I felt obligated to at least TRY. But… eh.

I spent the day cooking. It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, and this year that means a lot of cooking it seems. I don’t mind, really, because I positively LOVE to slice, dice, and chop veggies. I picked recipes that would require much of that. Olives just look more cheerful when they’re sliced like cheerios, right? I’m pretty picky about what gets sliced in what way. It’s calming.

It’s NOT calming when the kids say, “WOW! That! Looks! Actually! GOOD?!”

For them I made a plain baked spaghetti, matchstick celery sculptures supported by blobs of peanut butter, and garlic toast. For me, a veggie/penne  thing. For teachers, a chicken tetrazzini and a baked spaghetti made with my great grandmother’s spaghetti sauce recipe.  The kids call celery “salary.” But they ate it and loved it and got to play with their food and so I don’t care what they call it.

The bad news is that I completely broke the kitchen sink in ways I cannot fix, I melted part of my favorite cutting board, I melted and ruined a clear plastic lid, and I gave in to the extreme temptation to toss all those celery strings into the garbage disposal which is the sort of thing that Mike would be really annoyed about if he were here so I feel a little guilty.

I could hire a professional to fix the sink. But who needs a kitchen sink? And I bet it’s one of those things Mike could fix really quickly if I’ll just wait it out.  Serves me right.

And speaking of THAT.

I had to go face the guy who fixed the vacuum  I broke when I sucked up wet dog puke. I didn’t want to go. I’d learned my lesson. Mike said he would go. A lot. And then forgot. A lot. And then went out of town. A lot. And then I had to go.

The repair guy was darling. Maybe 80, and softspoken. But irritated. Justifiably irritated. I recognized his tone of voice immediately. It’s the one I use on the kids when I am well aware of every detail of something stupid they have done but I’m going to coax the truth out of them by sounding casual, curious, and barely interested. I am GOOD at that.

And so was the vacuum repair man.

“It looks like something wet was sucked up into the filter, here, missy. These aren’t made for that….?” A knowing, faux-kind glance over the top of his bifocals.

“Yes, sir. That was a bad decision. I’m sorry and thank you so much for fixing it!”

He had no way of knowing that I learned my lesson the moment i was hopping and covered head to toe in cold wet, ground up dog vomit that I would NEVER be repeating this mistake. He didn’t know.  He couldn’t be SURE I had really learned this lesson at all by this point.

He caught me off guard by explaining the cost of my bill would be for the price of the Dyson filter, and that was all. I thought we were on safer ground. I did not think twice when he handed me something and then looked down and saw that I was holding the OLD FILTER WITH THE VERY OLD DOG PUKE still all over it. In my hands. I jumped. I dropped it. I yelped.

He pretended I had done none of that and asked if I’d like to keep my old filter or if I’d prefer he throw it away there.

With a straight face.

I was impressed.

Irritated RIGHT BACK, but impressed. I wondered how many kids he had. How many grandkids. Because this guy was GOOD.

He insisted on carrying out my vacuum and then he stood in the parking lot with me and talked about what tomatoes we were both planting this year. He turned into the sweet, friendly man I’d assumed he was before he decided to subtly reprimand me like a bratty granddaughter. We stayed there by my car in the bright sunlight and talked about the weather and plants and he only went back to work when there wasn’t a trace of a hard feeling to be found on either side.

Lesson learned.

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