A Small Receptacle (cont'd)

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Just as I was getting the situation under a certain degree of control, the filter shot out of the hole due to a particularly evil burst of pressure. The water spurted out all over me and began truly flooding the bathroom floor. I slammed the filter back in, but the handle part, in league with the evil burst of pressure and a certain Swahili translator, saw its cue and chose that precise moment to break off again. This caused the whole filter assembly to wriggle cheerfully back out.

The handle, realizing it could do even more mischief, decided to divide and conquer me. The spring that held the safety catch in place popped out, flew in a graceful arc in the air, and with a plop, vanished beneath the surging, swirling water. While I watched it go, the safety catch slid surreptitiously out of my fingers and under the current as well.

I was groping around for both pieces so I could put the handle back together, snap it back onto the filter, and stop blocking the hole with my foot when, of course, the phone rang.

In my only stroke of luck that day, my right hand found the safety catch just as my left hand closed around the spring. I worked the handle back together, quickly reassembled the filter, rammed it into place, and swam out to the living room to grab the phone and come up for air.

It was Frances, calling to tell me she was coming home now and I could put the water on to boil for the pasta. "Have you started the sauce yet?" she asked.

"Oh, I haven't started dinner yet!" I said brightly, wiping the water off my face. "I'm too busy bailing out the bathroom!"

There was a pause. The machine in the bathroom was making noises like an elephant digesting. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of water trickling out from around the edges of a filter, trying to rotate it "in a counter-clockwise fashion".

"What... do you mean by that?" Frances was asking.

"Washing machine. Clogged filter. Small receptacle. Look, I'll explain when you get home. I gotta get back to the bathroom before the animals start marching in two by two. Bye!"

. . . . . . . .

Sofia got home late that night, and found us just finishing dinner. "Boy, you guys eat late!" She opened up the fridge and looked in. "What did you do today?"

"I fixed the washing machine!" I offered.

"Really? That's great." She grabbed some cookies off a shelf.

"And I washed the bathroom floor!" I added, beaming at her and draining my sixth glass of wine.

"Uh... that's nice." She looked around curiously. "Say, why are there towels hanging all over the place?"

I turned to Frances and asked for more wine. "There is no more, Reid. You drank it all."

"Oh." I considered this. Sofia was over by the sink.

"How 'bout some water?" she suggested.

And people wonder why I seem to have such a loose grip my sanity.

Copyright © 1994 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.