APPLIANCE REPAIR CENTRE

keep in mind i actually adore danskware.... but at the moment the shine's off the relationship a bit. the first time it happened, it was with an incredibly lovely pitcher that was a wedding present from my niece, filled with fresh squeezed juice, five minutes before twenty people were about to show for a birthday brunch. BOOM! the bottom drops out of the pitcher, juice everywhere, all over the dining room rug, chairs, and cat. wonderful niece hears about it, gives me this lovely replacement as a gift.

this time it was in the middle of an afternoon with a 103 degree heat index and 99% humidity. joel's down at nih having his own hell of a good time reading grants (do you know what this war is doing to scientific funding...it's not pretty.) mia's cranky and sick with an ear infection and running a fever, she's craving lemonade, but far too sick to walk the four blocks to the grocery store. so i gather her up, put her in the car, drive to the grocery store. i only pick up one can of lemonade, despite the fact that my far wiser four and a half year old says: "get two! get two!" but i figure i have all forty pounds of her on one hip, and a grocery basket filled with a gallon of organic milk,and half gallon of regular milk, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, cookies (because dammit, i need them) and 2 dozen eggs on the other, and not wanting to tempt fate and god forbid drop the bloody eggs, I hold firm, "No, one's enough." not to mention the lemonade feels really squishy, like their freezer might be broken. is it even safe to give her this? can you get food poisoning from unrefrigerated lemonade? "naah!" So out to the oven/car, put the groceries into the trunk. get the 40 pound kid, eggs, berries into the house in one piece, and am additionally thrilled that i haven't gotten in an accident, since i've had barely two hours sleep, (those of you who know me well, know that well...i don't often see 6:15 wake ups, because my fantastically wonderful husband does the early am parenting around here.) but i'm in the home stretch of the beverage run....put the now extremely syrupy lemonade mixture into the dansk pitcher, fill the pitcher to the brim water, stir the lemonade, turn around to fill mia's glass and BOOM! the bottom drops out. i stand there stupefied staring through my pulp splattered glasses at the handle i'm holding, and the lemonade running down my legs, dripping from the sink, the dishwasher, the stove, my dress, my kid's head (yes, poor lemonade craving waif) and the massive 5' by 6' foot puddle that's sliding it's way across the (f@!%, fu%k just washed yesterday, dammit) kitchen floor like a greased olympic luge coming to rest peacefully under the kitchen stove. from somewhere in the room, other than my now down on all fours, mopping up lemonade with a dishtowel prone body, i hear a small pitiful voice say, "mommy, can i have some lemonade?"

In our family, instead of hiding eggs, we hide the Easter baskets.