Death Wish
As most everyone who reads this blog knows, I tell two types of stories which might be broadly classified as 1. Death, and 2. Why I don’t deserve opposable thumbs. I’m leading off with another how-can-I-still-be-alive tale because I did the death thing last week with that dog story.
Every Sunday I make a week’s worth of breakfast drink for Diane. I pile a combination of fruit, bran, soy milk, orange juice and maybe a cup or two of whatever Odwalla’s on sale into a blender and create a home-fashioned smoothie. Some weeks it tastes better than others, it just depends on how “healthful†I make it. Too much bran, too many seedy blueberries and too much flax seed and you have something that slides down like lumpy mashed potatoes.
Because our blender is broken, I’ve been using Flo’s antique. It’s a spiffy metal and glass machine, and you can imagine smartly turned-out, red-dressed Betty Crocker using it to whip up a milk shake, or Flo preparing her patented raw egg, egg nogs to fortify her daughters brains for those midday exams. What you can’t imagine is any kind of updated electrical safety design.
This past Sunday I’ve got my concoction so tightly packed into the glass container that the blades are barely turning. Until, that is, I lift off the lid and instantly turn myself and the kitchen into a mad scientist’s experiment gone awry.
Flustered and frantic about the mess, I remove the jar and plunk the still-gleaming chrome base covered in red glop into the kitchen sink and begin spraying off the sides. It’s all working quite well until I realize I’ve failed to unplug the thing. I hesitate a moment fearing electrocution. I think about unplugging it, but then I decide instead to touch the thing. I wish I hadn’t done that.
Wow do I miss being witness to such great feats.
Comment by Son away from home — October 18, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
Maybe we go camping so far off the grid for the paucity of power cords …
Comment by adam — October 18, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
Can you even begin to imagine what shinydome might say in response to this posting!
Comment by FierceBaby — October 19, 2006 @ 9:07 am
So where are the photos (a) of the Pollacked kitchen, (b) the blackened, semi-electrocuted, Frankenstein monster?
Comment by rakkity — October 19, 2006 @ 10:11 am
Hear, hear! “Flustered and frantic” is no excuse …
Comment by el Kib — October 19, 2006 @ 10:26 am
Dear Son away from home,
Please think of these as Aesopish tales designed to guide you on your way through an injury-free life. Read, laugh and take notes. Oh…too late you say? You have a black eye and goose egg on your head that you might like to tell us about?
Love,
At Home Dad.
**************
Shinydome would send Matthew through the Selective Gene Removal Machine. But, guess what. I have one more story to tell.
Comment by michael — October 19, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
Unless you’re posting from The Great Beyond, surely more than one more story … ; >)
Comment by el Kib — October 19, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
So, you’re looking for another blender? Or Diane’s looking for another healthy breakfast alternative?
You know, that sense of “this is a Bad Idea” followed by “I wish I hadn’t done that” sounds familiar … Pause while I memory search. … Mine is about SPILLING SOME MILK (in my bookbag with all my students’ work for a week, but still!)
Mikey, you CAN CHOOSE to listen to the “this is a Bad Idea” fairy. Did I ever tell you about the q-tips? When I was a teenager I discovered that I like to use q-tips in my ears. I used to get a q-tip in the bathroom and walk down the hall to my bedroom cleaning my ears … all the while having images of tripping and breaking my eardrum when the q-tip was shoved deep into my ear canal. After months of doing this, I mentioned it to a friend of my mother’s. She said, “Jenny. Just don’t.” And I never did again. Well, only once or twice recently.
Comment by Jennifer — October 19, 2006 @ 9:37 pm
That’s the problem, Jennifer, it’s the fairy in me that cautions restraint, while Rambo says charge ahead.
My brother, Peter, when he lived up on Grok Hill with Eileen, was brushing his teeth outside in the dark and walked into a tree. You could imagine the outline of the brush protruding from the back of his neck.
Comment by michael — October 20, 2006 @ 6:31 am
But why not just make a decision to listen to the fairy? I mean, you will still do dangerous and/or stupid things, because one just loses track sometimes — like sawing off a branch which will change the support dynamics … oh, no, THAT wasn’t you but you get my drift. I’d rather be bored reading the blog.
Comment by Jennifer — October 20, 2006 @ 5:27 pm