I was thirsty for some Lime-aid and couldn't wait for the concentrate to thaw, so I tried to push the frozen concentrate through a funnel and ended up spreading sticky down the counter onto the floor and from my hands to the refrigerator door handle. My half hearted cleaning of the counter wasn't near good enough and the floor got a pathetic lick and a promise.
It wasn't long before Gramma stepped into the sticky and blew her top.
It wasn't pretty. Neither were my well meant chuckles, giggles and making sport of the whole affair. For the last several hours, she has taken all manner of tools unknown to me into the kitchen. Spray bottles sqjuirted, long handled pad holders scrubbed and though she can't get down on her knees, she would have if she could have. (like the lady in the picture)
My giggles just made the mess worse.
She got off some mock angry lines over the situation including: "Most mothers get nice gifts from their husbands, instead YOU gave me Sticky!
The grumbling turned cold and ugly after a while as she returned again and again to the scene of my crime--bumptionsly cleaning, slamming cupboard doors and grousing under her breath.
I admit it. I've always preached, "Clean as you Go!" like they teach KP artists in every mess hall in the military. But not this time. In my very weak defense I have to say that had I jumped up and made the effort, I would have likely spread the sticky wider and thinner, but still sticky! (I didn't even enjoy the lime-aid. It was weaker than normal because most of it ended on the floor and other kitchen surfaces. Besides, if I had weilded the weapons of cleansing, she, no doubt would have popped in often to repeat, "Oh-Oh...See...you missed a spot." This way she gets to clean things up to HER satisfaction. Pygmy rationalization, I agree!
It's past midnight. Yes, It's MOTHERS DAY. I am unfed and somewhat penitent. She's retired to the couch and a romance. TV is off. I am blogging again--something I do a lot lately. In the same room with the mother of my children--and yet absorbed in my own world of better informed grampas and little grams!
The kitchen is clean, but at such a cost! It wasn't a fight, really--but an always healthy exchange of views, and a wonderful opportunity for me, through weakness and poor performance as a husband and juice maker, to help my sweet Gramma Rosie feel justifiably self righteous and armed with another, "Your FAHther story for our daughter---I predict as always, she will come out the star in the telling.
Advice for you? Nope! not at all! But I predict that next time I get a thirst for lime-aid, I'm asking her first! (Because as she is anxious to tell me from her superior position, "If you don't clean it up properly, it spreads like a RASH!) Well, a good night's sleep will heal all wounds, I do sincerely hope! We both have to rest up for the presentation of the well meant half dead geranium from the youth and the sincere, if off key chorus of, "Mother, Dear, I love you so! at church in the morning! On We Go--LAUGHING! JRH
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