Question:
Can I finish those two last sips of water in that glass I left on the kitchen table overnight? It looks fine.
Answer:
NO.
Question:
Are you sure I can’t reuse that coffee cup with the valuable chamomile teabag still in it, even though it has been sitting by its lonely little self in an unsupervised room for 4 hours?
Answer:
NO.
Question:
I’m going to eat another peanut butter sandwich and the knife I used for the last one is still…
NO!
It’s not that I don’t do these things, I do, all the time. I have lived here over a year and a half but the temptation to break the number one dish rule is overwhelming. Its such a drag washing dishes all the time.
Question:
Can I pour just a little more cereal into the pretty porcelain bowl I left in my office all morning?
Answer:
NO. Or – okay, but if the dark gritty thing turns out to be mouse turd and not a raisin, its you that broke the rule.
Question:
Can I put on the electric kettle, which has a sturdy plastic lid, and use the water already in it from yesterday?
Answer:
Miniscule boiled ants don't taste good in coffee.
Question:
Can I pick up the frying pan which is stored on the kitchen shelf and set it on the stovetop without giving it a second glance?
Answer:
NO. NONONO. You must first wash off the spider eggs. Also, two cockroaches had a square dance competition on it last night, you just can’t tell.
The same rule should apply to toothbrushes, but I still leave mine out. Finding another routine feels too complicated. I try to think of it as building up my immune system.
This is the frog I used to talk to in the shower, until I found him sleeping on the bristles of my toothbrush.
This is the rat I found comatose and without control of its bodily fluids, but not yet dead, on my living room floor after it ate a bar of soap in my kitchen.
This is the scorpion that tried to eat me, until I smashed his ugly stupid head into the floor.
This is a really mangy-looking dog I met in Sena.
This is Sara with an inflatable plastic monkey she loved as a child.
This is the gingerbread Cyclops I made last Christmas which won the prize for "Most Historical" at our southern Africa retreat in Zambia - hahaha.
8 comments:
I think many of your rules apply to suburban IL as well. I found out yesterday that a green tea bag, sitting in a small pool of liquid, for about 5 days, does indeed form mold. So you can add to your list:
Can I hide my green tea mug, tea bag included, from my toddler in the bathroom?
Answer: No. You forget where you hid it and mold grows.
I respect mold, it is after all another living being. But I would rather eat tofu scramble with broken glass in it (another story) than smell moldy green tea. But you have me beat- I have not found a dead rat in quite some time.
Can I share your blog with my Burkina Faso family members? This blog hits "home" with their lives too :). I grew up on stories starting with "and then I saw this huge cockroach" or "and the spider was bigger than my hand" :).
So was that prize SUPPOSED to be "most hysterical" instead of "most historical"? Cause I think it could have won that, too.
And speaking of hysterical, the picture of Sara and the monkey, amongst the various bugs and rodents?
Laugh. Out. Loud. :) Love you, friend.
Leslie
Ohh, man. Now we can't wait to visit!! Mom
yeah, anyway, are you trying to say that you categorize ME with that frog and rat and scorpian and the cockroaches?!? Just for that I'm going to go put my foot on your PILLOW@! And then I'll burp up a centipede onto your keyboard.
ha.
I'll never leave food or utensils out without thinking about this blog. mb
This blog entry cracked me up! Can totally relate to just the reality of having to ask these questions. I, too, may give an emphatic no as an answer to them but yet, I still do it. We've come a long way, baby!
You crack me up! I can give you a copy of the photo of the frog I found in the lettuce if you want to add it to the collection of animal photos?! Marina
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