CHAOS, PANIC, & DISORDER…My Work Here is Done

So I’m in trouble for flushing noodles down the toilet bowl. While trying to poke them, strand by strand through the tiny holes of the kitchen sink drain, I had a bright idea and scooped them all up to dump them down a much bigger and considerably more convenient hole. I was not anticipating any problems. So now the toilet is all backed up and the uh… bathroom amenities are currently out of order. So of course I had to try to explain to my fiancé (aka the person pooling in for the other half of the rent) the matter of the noodles and the toilet bowl. I started by reminding him how sad I was that time when my goldfish ‘Cat,’ went on to kingdom come, passed on to the other side, moved on beyond the vale (or possibly ‘the veil’… anyway… that). I casually mentioned how, when it was time to send Cat on, all it took was a bucketful of water and he went swirling away to fishie heaven without a fuss, and oh, by the way, how come the same thing doesn’t happen with a bowlful of noodles? When the argument got really heated up, I reminded him that he never did specifically forbid me from flushing you-know-what down you-know-where. Jaws clenched, he tells me he never thought it would come up, but that in my case, evidently, he was wrong. What?! What does he mean ‘in MY case’? And I’m off and yelling. “What’s wrong with MY case?!!! Don’t look at me in that tone of voice!!!”

I can generally tell by his eyes when he’s really mad. I mean there’s usually some nostril work going on as well but mostly it’s the eyes. Also he goes an off-white shade. One of those colors that turn up in Victoria Secret catalogs with names like “fawn” or “magnolia” or “camel.” The impression that if I said one more word, things will become dire, is very clear. I resolve to leave him alone until he decides to apologize to me.

Nothing happens… Nothing continues to happen. Some more of nothing. Nothing, the Return. Son of Nothing. The Revenge of Nothing. Nothing Rides Again. Nothing and Charlie Chaplin meet the Batman…

I am not the domestic diety that Marlon’s mother apparently is. I can never get my potted plants to stay alive, I prick myself full of holes just sewing on a button, and don’t even get me started on my cooking. In my defense, I DO try, but with me, even with the simplest of dishes, 90 percent of the time, its 50-50. I have absolutely no aptitude for housework. Left to myself, I would, entirely without meaning to, probably burn the house down, and thus quickly be forced to kill myself as a dubious form of restitution. I can’t help it, it’s my nature.

Hm… maybe I should get myself a better nature.

But man, do I test well! And interview well! I can write better than anyone who writes faster, and write faster than anyone who writes better. I can win quiz bowls and debate tourneys and I can pull off a gown with a slit that ends where my thong begins.

It’s an odd thing though, how the existence of my uh… talents has evidently consumed what would otherwise be spread out among the more usual facets of the female personality.

I would like to be one of those women who sits on a couch with a glass of iced tea and knits tea cozies all afternoon. I don’t even know what a tea cozy is, but I wanna be knitting one. I’ve always MEANT to get myself domesticated, but I intensely don’t WANT to, so I haven’t gotten around to it yet. And now here I am, my wedding day just months away, and I’m flushing noodles down the toilet bowl. My God in heaven, I am going to be a terrible wife! This is going to be a disaster!! The kind that only cockroaches survive!!!

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice?” It’s Marlon. He’s not mad anymore. “I’m full of crap,” I say, and shrug in a way that, I hope, indicates that I contain within me, depths of crap as yet unplumbed. He smiles. Properly deployed, that smile could launch a holy war. He’s fixed the toilet bowl and that among countless others is yet another reason why I know I’ll be okay. With him by my side, how can I go wrong?

We cuddle. “Are we still on for April the 8th?” he asks. “I want a full brass band,” I tell him, “I want 12 brides maids, peacocks, flag bearers, and outriders, and perhaps an elephant- they are so imposing, nothing says 'Get out of the way' quite like an elephant in the front...”