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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Tea-ball and Kitchen Demolition

After starting breakfast I was excited to try my new tea-ball on coffee. I got about a heaping tablespoon inside of it, put it in my mug and set enough water to boil. My thought was to experiment with said appliance until the drink was satisfactory. The first experiment was to be the simplest.
I drank nearly all the coffee and left a quarter to go cold while we worked--I like it cold, lukewarm, hot... temperature is absolutely unimportant unless the outside atmosphere is excessively cold or hot.
Anyway, then I put on my dusty orange gloves and dirty white apron and grabbed a hammer an dthe small crowbar: my favorite demolition tools.
Ephraim had had too much honey in his oatmeal or something, so he started by staring at the kitchen cupboards, covered with tiny brown dots. (I'll tell you what was wrong with him; he had eaten brown sugar and was not used to it, so it sapped his energy. I'm telling you from much experience, sugar does that.)
Well, I had already stared at it the other day, so, being prepared, I set about ripping one of the cupboard doors off. It turned out that with this particular set of cupboards, it was more efficient to unscrew the hinges. This we did, and then set about the harder task of the next layer, and then the shelves themselves.
Now every time you did anything to those cupboards and counters, there would be a sound of settling, like when you wipe the spelt off the counter and each little grain hits the floor.
The bug and mouse droppings rolled off along with whatever other debris, usually including screws and bits of garbage, onto the next thing below it, so you had to bang, step back, bang, step back or it'd get all over you. If it wasn't for my hair I wouldn't mind, but girls, ya'll know that stuff is hard to clean! And I'm not going to cut it short like last time this happened.
We modified a Nacho Libre quote:
"In that crack over there," I said, "is a cockroach naest."
"And that is a crazy spider." Ephraim added as I squished it.
After Ephraim got the whole counter off with several upward and downward blows of the sledgehammer (those thangs are fun aren't they), we each took an end and half-carried, half-tossed it onto the massive pile of junk which now fills the dining room almost to the ceiling.
But we finished! We finally got rid of that whole entire thing that was covered in many species of insects (dead and alive), dirt, and poop! It was fully the grossest job we've had to do, or probably will have to do, unless someone has to crawl under the house. We're still not sure what that mud down there consists of, but it seems to contain a lot of oil. But that's a story for another day.
I will, however, add one final note.
During the entire demolition project, an evilly pink wasp of hideous dimensions (being almost the length of my thumb, and definitely the length of Aunt Pat's) appeared and disappeared around the window. Ephraim and I would regularly comment on the wasp's whereabouts, and as I yanked up the last board, I said,
"Hey Ephraim, since I killed all those spiders do you wanna take on the wasp?"
"No."
"Haha, it's the only one that's slightly dangerous."
This in itself is interesting--the implied fear of all bugs is just apparent enough to illicit a chuckle from me as I write. Now no one will miss it though.

Around lunchtime I came back to my coffee, which I had unfortunately not covered. There was a fly in it.
"It's okay," I gave me permission." You have put up with enough bugs this day." So, relieved, I tossed the rest outside. This is how I make decisions. I have the boss self and the self that takes breaks.
I'll never know exactly how unsuccessful my tea-ball experiment was, but I did see plenty of fine coffee in the bottom which I had to rinse out. Thank you, Mama (I keep misspelling your name MMA; interesting huh), for sending me with your special mug. I'll take care of it till your coming.

Edit: I call them tea-balls. I don't know what they're called but that's what they are to me. I'm sure you all know exactly what I am talking about; if not, please comment.

3 comments:

linda said...

oh also try not to kill ALL the spiders put em outside well depending on how dangerous ea one is but most spiders will not bother you or hurt you unless you bug them to begin with. And some are more venomous than others, but Ivah can tell you more bout that. But I kinda sad reading the part where you " squished or killed the spiders" so i know Lullabye would be REALLY upset compared to me. ha ha :/

linda said...

but yes the wasp interesting and yes scary n deadly pink hmmm?

Havi said...

We squish all bugs that invade our property. I don't think it's that bad to kill them anyways! I hope Lullabye's not reading this... I forgot her great aversion to spider-killing. Oops...