As the woman from my health plan abruptly cut me off and put me on hold for the fourth time, I thought to myself, “Seriously?” While normally, I’m a very patient, laid-back person, two things canquickly send me over the edge: computer problems and bad customer service. It took two hours, three transfers, and five unfriendly, unhelpful service representatives to finally resolve my billing issue.
To shift the frustrating way I’d started my day, I decided I would do something active and useful: deep clean my apartment.
Shortly after I’d finished mopping the kitchen floor, I noticed thick, green liquid oozing from under my kitchen sink. Imagining something from Ghostbusters, I opened the cabinet to find the entire area flooded with floor cleaner from a silent leak in the bottom of the container. Half of what was stored under there was ruined; the other half was covered in sticky green goo. “Seriously?” I whimpered again, this time more forcefully.
I got to work cleaning up the mess, feeling like I was in an “I Love Lucy” episode. The goo foamed up and expanded, slopping around the kitchen floor and rising toward the countertops almost faster than I could wipe and wash it down. Even with the windows open, I felt woozy from the chemically fumes. Finally, I finished, and there was only one housecleaning chore left to do: vacuuming. I vacuumed meticulously for over an hour, saving my bedroom for last. I wanted to clean that room the most thoroughly since I was getting congested at night from all of the dust.
As I began vacuuming near the foot of the bed, there was a sudden, loud “Bang!” A plastic piece spit out of the bottom of the vacuum cleaner, and the back of it started to smoke.
“Oh come on! Seriously?!” I implored the skies, waving my hands in disbelief and falling to my knees. I was exhausted, hungry, and in desperate need of a shower. It was 9:15 at night, and I had been cleaning non-stop since 2:00 in the afternoon. There was only one logical thing to do: Go get chicken tikka masala.
As I savored the last juicy, flavorful morsel of my favorite takeout food, I smiled with pleasure. I was in a much better mood now. I called the Indian restaurant.
“Hi, I just picked up a to-go order a little while ago,” I began.
“Yes?” the man at the restaurant asked hesitantly.
“I just wanted to let you know that it was absolutely delicious. It cheered me up after a really horrible day.”
“Seriously?” he laughed, both pleased and surprised.
“Seriously!” I smiled, hanging up the phone.
© 2010 by Laurie Gardner
