Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Is Thirteen Unlucky?

Things are wacky around here. For a start, the leaves are turning. Then there are no Monarch butterflies. It's felt like September for a couple of weeks now which is odd, and then there's the business with 13. I'm not superstitious at all but I've had 3 mornings with 13 at the table, a fact I made note of not because I'm spooked by 13, but because I have 12 of everything that goes on the table and 13 is a pain in the neck plus it means moving chairs in from the kitchen blah dee blah. So on the first 13 morning, I'm in my kitchen with stuff in the oven, stuff on the stove and 13 people at the table. My feet feel wet. My feet feel wet? I look down and see that hot soapy water is coming out of the bottom of the dishwasher. While I am trying to take this in, I turn to the double sink and see that water is coming up from both drains. I stood transfixed thinking to myself, 'well, if you're going to have an idea, now would be a good time'. And so it came to me to TURN OFF THE DISHWASHER. I sloshed around the kitchen throwing tea towels in my wake and managed to deliver breakfast to the unsuspecting baker's dozen. A week or so later there were 13 guests again. Keeping a wary eye on the plumbing, I was taken by surprise when my tooth fell out. That would be the one that makes you look like a homeless bag lady when you smile. No doubt my guests wondered why I suddenly was doing a geisha impersonation every time I was called upon to speak or smile. A couple of days later, it was with a good deal of trepidation that I set the table for 13. But, I cooked breakfast without drowning or setting myself on fire and my bodily parts stayed where they belonged and so I was taken off guard when one of my guests turned to me and said, "was that your horse?" "Horse?" I said. Thirteen heads nodded. "The horse last night" they repeated. "Horse?" I said again. I couldn't seem to say anything else. Were they saying "Horse"? "The horse that came down the driveway last night" someone said and they all nodded at me, smiling and waiting for an explanation. "Horse?" I said. All the people on the north side of the house told how a horse walked down the driveway and around the back of the house. The people on the south side reported how a horse walked down the back drive and disappeared. I remembered how the sensor light on the back of the house had come on in the night and how our Jack Russell barked and how we said rather crossly, "go to bed, Jack. There's nothing there." We heard him mumbling in his bed something about there's a bloody great horse in the driveway, but you know how Jack Russells are, and so we ignored him. There is no end to this story. A horse walked down my driveway in the middle of the night and 13 people and a Jack Russell saw him.