October 5, 1999

Last night was Keith's night to game, so I stayed home and worked on my web page for the most part. I used to dread Monday nights, because I had nothing to do and Keith was gone, but I'm starting to really like them. When Keith is home, I tend to feel guilty about spending a lot of time on the computer, because I feel like I'm neglecting him. More to the point, I'd rather spend time with him than with my web page.

Anyway, he was out of the house, so I spent like four or five hours updating my site and surfing the web and stuff. It was just like college again. I also ordered out for the evening (another Monday night tradition) and repainted my nails.

Living in Ohio and then Chicago, I never really developed an appreciaton for clam chowder. In fact, I had never had it before I moved out here. It's just not really a big deal in the Midwest. But here in Seattle.. it's like an art form. It has become my favorite soup now, leaping out WAY ahead of miso, which previously held the crown. Clam chowder is like ambrosia. (Do I sound like an Ivars commercial? OK, I'll stop. But it's really good soup, really.)

The following anecdote will require some background info, so bear with me.

When Keith got home he was all clammy from riding his bike back from gaming in 50-degree weather, so he hopped in the bathtub. I took the opportunity to take out my contacts. I was standing there, about to pop the right one out, when I noticed that my box of feminine hygiene products was dyed this odd BLUE color.

"Hon? Why are my feminine hygiene products BLUE now?"

Keith looked sheepish. Uh-oh.

"Did you drop them in the toilet? If you did, just tell me, I'd rather know than not know, because if you dropped them in the toilet I can easily just go get some more."

"No," he said, "I didn't drop them in the toilet. It's just that... OK, I was sitting in the computer room..."

Hm. The computer room is down the hall. It's not in the bathroom. Keith is going to tell me how my feminine hygiene products turned blue and the story starts out down the hall? This is Not Good.

"... and I was like, what the hell is that minty smell? But I ignored it. Then fifteen minutes later, I was like, DAMN, where is that minty smell coming from?? But I was working on my code, so I didn't go check. Then finally like an hour later, I was like, JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS THAT MINTY SMELL??? So I went in the bathroom, and there's this thin stream of blue trickling out the door..."

We leave a lot of stuff on the back of the toilet. Like my feminine hygiene products (they're in a small box), a book for bathroom reading, a shaving mug, and. . . LISTERMINT.

YES, I said Listermint! The Listermint is what was spewing across the bathroom floor. "But hon," I asked, "so the Listermint was spewing across the floor, why were my feminine hygiene products involved?"

He looked more sheepish. Oh God.

"Well," he said, "I was sitting on the toilet taking a crap..."

How did I know that taking a crap would somehow figure into this story?

"... and stuff just kept falling off the top of the toilet, and I just really didn't bother to pick it up."

I stopped him. "WAIT, you were taking a crap and random stuff just kept falling off the toilet?? Does this usually happen? It doesn't happen when *I* take a crap!"

Mind you, he was still in the bathtub while we were having this conversation. So he glares at me from the bathtub, which was not menacing at all, because he was naked and naked men just aren't menacing. He said, "Yeah well, I was shifting around or something, don't you do that?"

I shook my head mutely.

"ANYWAY, all this stuff kept falling off the toilet and I just left it there, and I guess one of them was your box of feminine hygiene products, which then got drenched by the spew of Listermint. ... hey, those things are individually wrapped, right?"

"Yeah."

"Oh good, because I bet that cool refreshing minty flavor wouldn't be so great if it was shoved.."

"Right." Anyway, after that we had an abortive conversation about appropriate methods of closing the Listermint bottle and appropriate methods of taking a crap, neither of which really went anywhere, mostly because yours truly kept laughing and Keith kept rolling his eyes.

The bathroom smells really clean and minty now, though.

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