Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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My first husband David and I had been married less than a year. We lived in an apartment building on the top / third floor. Upon entering the door, the small, narrow kitchen was immediately to the left with a short, narrow entry straight ahead into the livingroom. If you walked to the left through the kitchen, it opened into the dining area which was open to the livingroom. At the far side of the livingroom was the hallway - first door on the right was the "cloak room" or hall closet, which we called THE STUPID ROOM, in honor of Jeff and Gretchen. The bathroom was next on the right. On the left was our bedroom, and straight ahead down the hall was the larger bedroom we had set up as an office. I was teaching at a Vo-Technical school, Dave had taken the afternoon off work for a doctor's appointment for a bug bite on his leg that had swelled to a scary size. He beat me home - he was in the kitchen, had opened the fridge and gotten something out to put in the microwave. I asked what the doctor had said about the bite, and as usual - since I can't hear unless I'm looking at you - I walked away back into the bedroom where I couldn't have heard him with GOOD hearing. Our cheap microwave had a dial on it (showing my age) rather than a digital read-out. His habit was to spin the ten-minute dial all the way around, get something to drink, then take out his food and spin the dial back to zero. I had interrupted his routine by asking a question and continuing to walk down the hallway, so he followed me to tell me what the doctor said. I can only guess that maybe 3 minutes went by - I really have no idea, but there was a very loud **BOOM** that came from the kitchen. Like an animated love scene, we both turned our heads toward each other in unison with eyeballs so big they nearly filled the room. "What was THAT?", he said. I asked, "What did you have in the microwave?" Do you believe he answered, "I DON'T KNOW" ...?? How could you not know what you put in the microwave? We slowly walked out to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and started moving things around, which to me, was a totally illogical move for one of the most logical people I know. (you could almost call him Spock.) I looked at the microwave- the glass door on the front looked like someone had tried to punch their fist through it from the INSIDE. When I opened the door, there was a mangled mess of plastic pieces, which took a few seconds to realize the sides and top had imploded. I pulled the plug - the sides of the oven were as hot as a metal tea kettle upon whistling - and with a butter knife, started trying to move the pieces of plastic around. I finally found a black, charcoaled disk the size of a silver dollar, about a half inch thick, laying on the glass plate at the bottom. I gently picked it up and held it in front of David's face - he said, "I think it was a bagel." I guess I interrupted him before he had the chance to pour his drink and spin the knob, which still had about 6 minutes left on it, back to zero. OOPS- my fault. Two words I learned to say at an early age. |