That ought to learn me. Actually, I probably should have learned quite some time ago. Like years, even. But because I apparently haven’t yet, I guess I’m going to have to codify it for future reference. Thus, I give you…
Puddin’s Law of Negative Thinking
Regardless of intended level of cuteness, wit, or cleverness, if you’re planning on posting anything to the internet with a negative theme, just go ahead and smack yourself in the face three or four times and get the bad karma out of the way first.
Case in point: not having a real topic planned for this particular post, I waffled a bit between something electiony or maybe a few hundreds words about the Bengals season so far. But, instead, owing to a particularly meh attitude, I got to thinking about how much it rubs like 60-grit sandpaper to the nethers when people post pictures of being on vacation to facebook while they’re on vacation. I mean, they’re on vacation for goodness’ sake, did they really have to take the time out to post a bunch of sunny jpgs just to rub your nose in how much fun they’re having while you, you know, go to work.
Now, rumor has it I might be embittered at the moment by a facebook friend at Disney, who’s reveling in the wonder of the Magic Kingdom. Which only serves to remind me that I’ve got other friends on a cruise someplace right now and a newly-married cousin off someplace wonderful and fun.
On the other hand, I had broccoli and carrots for lunch today. And not even, like, good broccoli and carrots with some cheesy saucy stuff that’s certain to raise the ire of cardiologists everywhere. No, I mean simple, plain, steamed broccoli. Which is fine and all, full of vitamins and fiber and whatnot; I’m sure I’ll be regular. But I think we can all agree that steamed broccoli for lunch at one’s desk is decidedly not vacationy.
So, to recap: friends, relatives? Vacations. Puddin? Desk broccoli.
*blows kazoo*
*throws kazoo*
*stomps on kazoo in a fit*
Ahem. Anyway, I was contemplating that post while doing a little kitchen cleanup, when Fate promptly stepped in and proceeded to give me an advance payment on my negative karma. As I sprayed out the kitchen sink and fitted the combination hand-sprayer/faucet back into it’s post slot—perhaps slightly more forcefully than necessary, because, well sometimes I’m just all “HULK CLEAN SINK BLARARRRGGH!”—just as the thing stopped spraying water.
Oddly enough, though, I then heard the ominous sprinkle, twinkle, splash of my good ole’ H2O going someplace other than into the sink.
Which, you know, obviously meant it was pouring freely into the cabinet below the sink.
My brain, faced with the fact that water was flowing, unimpeded, below did what it normal does in such situations: it proceeded to attain a state of Zen-like, blank calm.
I’m sorry, no, you misunderstood; not the kind of blank calm that allows one to do heroic things like lifting a car off a soccer mom’s broken leg or eating a dozen Crazy Blaze Gut-Burner Buffalo wings without thinking about it. No, instead it was the kind of blankness that leads you to stare ahead into space for a good 30 to 45 seconds, dumbfounded, while something like this goes through your head:
*blink blink*
Huh, that’s a splashy, watery noise. I’m not wetting myself am I? No? Good.
*blink*
Still splashy splashy noises, though. Am I in a shower? No. Someone should stop it, then.
*blink blink*
Squirrel!
That, of course, is just about the time when a lucky few might regain some sense of mental awareness. Which, of course, results in:
Oh F*&$! Turn off the water, idiot!
With the water off, I realized that my sprayer handle must have come free from it’s feed line, thus allow said feed line to act in accordance with its name and feed water into the Under Cabinet.
And let’s face it, that space under the kitchen sink is the Bates Motel of kitchen cabinetry. There’s stuff in there you might use once a year, but there’s even more stuff in those dark recesses that haven’t seen the light of day since the moment you put it there when unpacking the moving boxes. You snake a hand back in there, there’s no telling if you’ll get it back. And worse, if you do, that hand will probably be attached to a 1974 air-popper that won’t ever fit back in the same way again.
Then, of course, just to add insult to injury, before the start of operation Dark Icky Clean, I reached for a paper towel and was reminded of another of Puddin’s laws:
Puddin’s Law of Emergency Bounty
Any urgent paper towel situation will result in a grabbing for a roll containing at most one (1) paper towel, a nasty glue-drenched thing that sticks to the tube and has all the absorbency of a 480-piece Lego set.
And if all that wasn’t enough, after getting a new roll, cleaning up the mess, putting the stuff back into the Cabinet of Doom somehow, and fixing the spray handle, I stepped into the powder room….and found that Smitty and his trusty plunger were needed to address an, um, issue.
Yeah, look, Fate, I got it. You win; it’s all paid forward now. I’ll take my smackdown, quit whining, and go home.
So, um, just call off the dogs now, k?
Pud’n
Puddintopia 