Subject: Crinoline Crush

Date: 27 Oct 1998 00:00:00 GMT

From: nospamum@radix.net (Mumthra)

Organization: MotPU: Where Binary Moodswings are ALWAYS on the Menu

Newsgroups: alt.foot.fat-free

"Econoline Crush" is a better band name, sure, but that is what I

THOUGHT I heard, so therefore I like it better.

How's stream of consciousness? Okay? Okay.

We just returned from another lunchtime with Lulu. I am STILL laughing

about the last trip. She's a pathologically compulsive housekeeper,

although she swears she trying to resist the call of the vacuum.

Anyway, that's why I experienced one of my worst ever instants of

abject shame in her kitchen last time.

She fixed us each a bowl of ramen noodles, and then called me away

from the babies to inhale my portion of our overdue lunch. The packet

of sticky flavor pellets was lying on the counter next to my bowl, so

naturally I shook it. Because she had already cut it open, naturally a

fine spray of artificial seasoning deposited on every single surface

within a three foot radius of my right hand. I'd a lahk to DIE!

Colored salt and MSG and flecks of greenish whatsit covered her

counter, her perfectly aligned canisters, her pristine white microwave

and her telephone.

I picked up the phone and held it over the sink and blew on it.

Nothing happened. It was as if some disturbed finger printer had

dusted from a very wrong jar. She watched all this without a twitch,

while I cackled and failed in my attempts to clean it. I really wanted

to make her kitchen right again, but I think we both know my

limitations well enough, so she shooed me away. I just wished that I'd

managed to do that to someone I dislike.

This morning was oddly orderly, even though it was Sharing Day, Orange

Day and Bring a Pound of Celery Day. Somehow everyone got deposited on

time with all their gear. I was the Daylight Savings Time Hero at the

preschool by fixing the class clock, which the teacher had attacked

too forcefully while trying to change the time. She knocked the hands

completely off, and being a pathologically compulsive clockwatcher,

she was in real distress. Even though she is a truly twitchy presence,

I still felt that weird urge to please that all the best preschool

teachers foster. Once I had the thing set and reassembled, I was just

as proud as if I'd had a big smiley face stamped on my hand for the

effort.