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.
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