Post by Surya Kolluri
Due to (solely) my good actions (and I insist they are good) in the kitchen, we had to pay $500 in damages and repair and I had to spend the night with the dog in the living room.
Please allow me to explain.
Act I
It was a lovely, lovely Saturday morning. I woke up, jumped sprightly out of bed, stretched and looked around. There was no one around, not even sleeping mounds of humanity below blankets. Then I remembered, this was my off-weekend.
My wife Mini and I take alternate weekends to drive our son Rahul up to Vermont. This way he gets to ski every weekend, and one of us gets to complete errands at home, plus rest up! And just out of habit, a dog sitter takes Freddie away for the weekend just during the winter, in case all of us decide to go off to VT.
I clapped my hands in glee, brewed up some coffee, hit up all my social networking sites, talked to my dad, had breakfast, wrote up my essay for the week in one energetic swoosh. I got up from my chair in the study in a gesture of satisfaction and glanced at the clock. It was only 830 am. I said to myself, in a note of real concern, "Surya, what are you going to do now?". (I often say, "Surya, xx etc', when I am alone)
I wandered around the house aimlessly for a bit, and as I was pushing this and tugging that, an idea dawned in my head. Why not clean up the house! A win-win, I said to myself. I keep busy and I earn mucho points with the boss.
With mission determined, time at my disposal, distractions at bay, I set forth. I was diligently working my way through each room and presently I came upon the Kitchen.
As I was about to set foot in the room, I heard a loud booming voice. "Son, don't do it. Good work so far. But restrict yourself to the coffee machine and the dishes and quit while you are ahead". I was surprised at this voice. I am a very rational person and don't pay attention to these kinds of voices. I dismissed it as a Raymond Smullyan-esque hallucination (re: "Is God a Taoist") and proceeded forth into the kitchen.
"chi-chi-chi" I said to myself as I saw how things were organized there. No logic, no rationale to what was where. I proceeded to re-arrange everything by size, color and shape. I even made a quick visit to the Target Store, an upper end Walmart as it were, and bought some spice racks and rearranged all the spice bottles just so.
I peered into the refrigerator. "chi chi chi" I said to myself. There were all kinds of things that I did not recognize, including an unusually large cake. I promptly threw them all out and made the refrigerator sparkle just like in the TV commercials.
That was satisfying, I said to myself at the end of this vigorous effort. I then started up some tunes on my playlist, broke open a bottle of wine and thoroughly enjoyed myself in this clean and serene setting.
Act II
The family came back towards the end of the weekend and so did Freddie. I proudly showed off the spiffy and sparkling home and everyone was delighted. Freddie had no problem finding where I had put away his toys.
It was a pleasant evening indeed, as I played role of Sue Chef and helped Mini as she got dinner organized, since I knew where everything was. And then for some reason, I had to step into the study. And Mini asked me for where some particular bottle was, and I, employing the full force of the logic of my organization said it was in the top rack, last row of the spice shelf.
Unfortunately, Mini had to get a step ladder to reach this spot, and had to stretch to reach the said bottle. It turns out that under these circumstances a domino effect could be created (note to self). One large bottle shook itself loose, and apparently in slow motion, twirled, wobbled, shook and launched itself. It feel smack on top of thecooking range, protected itself, but shattered the glass top of the cooking range into a zillion pieces.
We all ran into the kitchen to see what this hellish noise was. There it was, a fully damaged stove. (Cost $500).
After that commotion was over, we all finally settled into bed. At about 11 pm, Mini had to go into the Kitchen just to get some water. Suddenly there was a frustrated and fearful call that came from the kitchen. The frustration in her voice wanted me to curl into my blanket and disappear. The fear in her voice made me leap out of bed and rush to the kitchen.
It was a gruesome sight!
There was Freddie by the Fridge licking his chops. On the floor was the 'cake' completely torn apart and all over the floor, and white pieces of plastic everywhere.
As I looked at Mini through my sleep stupefied gaze, she asked, "Did you throw the Rotisserie Chicken away?"
My mind was running a little slowly. But I have to admit 3 questions were going through my mind. i) What IS a rotisserie chicken? ii) Why was it in OUR fridge? iii) Wasn't it supposed to be a CAKE?
I did not dare ask these questions. Apparently, Freddie, had smelled the chicken in the garbage can, turned it upside down, and got to the whole friggin' chicken.
I had to do another round of clean up in the kitchen. Sigh!
ACT III
'You realize Freddie is going to get sick because of this', my wife said.
I agreed. I brightly suggested, "Cant we lock him up in the bathroom, so he does not soil our carpets by accident?"
"No, he will yelp, bang on the door and generally scratch it up. He is used to sleeping in the living room. Perhaps you should watch over him."
I knew this was the only right thing to do.
So I went to the bedroom and wrapped a blanket around me like a Conoor guesthouse gardener and joined Freddie in the living room. He jumped onto to his favorite sofa.
I settled into the sofa nearby. He looked at me with very blissful eyes, surprised and happy with my company and settled down.
I wrapped the blanket tightly around me and stared at him gloomily.
As I drifted away into sleep, I did have one perky thought. "Surya" I said to myself, "aha, the breakfast cereal boxes, they can be re-arranged in alphabetical order!"