Cotton Candy and The Plumber

Yesterday morning, Bruce and I decided that the kitchen sink was clogged when we saw that all the coffee grounds I had dumped down the garbage disposal refused to be garbage disposed of and rebelled by overflowing clear brown buckets of water.

It was early, and we had just enjoyed breakfast. Adding the breakfast dishes to all the water cups from the night before, we began a nice pile of dirty tableware to accompany the lake of diluted coffee shimmering in my sink.

We knew we needed to call the plumber, but we were on our way to Chuck E. Cheese's. The one in Fullerton. The one that took us an hour and a half on the 5 freeway to get to, so that we could enjoy 3 hours of pizza, cake, frolicking children, rats, hens and other creatures.

When we got home, the girls begged their Daddy to let them eat their party bag contents - one of which was a large tub of cotton candy. One tub for each girl. Daddy, being the wholesome, organic, anti fast food nation kind of guy that he is, did not acquiesce to their requests. I quietly put the buckets of cotton candy aside and planned on throwing the addictive sugar away when the girls weren't looking.

The next morning, which was this morning, Bruce called from work and told me that the plumber would be arriving at the house in one hour. It was 9am. Hello? Today is Veteran's Day and I had slept in. I had one hour to shower and feed the girls and what? wash yesterday's breakfast and dinner dishes in the bathtub? NFW.

The girls woke up at the sound of the ringing phone and ran to me clamoring for breakfast. "Mom, please make us breakfast!" They said. "We are hungry for breakfast!"

Since that is one of my jobs as a sahm, I obliged them. I made them oatmeal and english muffins. I was happy with myself having given them a nutricious breakfast. I'm sure Bruce would have preferred me to feed them acidofilus laced with wheat germ accompanied with Ezekial bread toast and organic peaches shipped in from Georgia, but I do what I can with what I've got.

I added the breakfast dishes to my growing pile as the girls asked me for cotton candy. It was 9:15am. "You can't have cotton candy for breakfast." I said wisely. "Oh yes we can." Says Celeste. "Daddy said we could. Besides it's not for breakfast, we already had breakfast, remember?"

Yes, I remembered. It was no problem to remember because they had just finished their oatmeal and toast 4 minutes before. "So Daddy said you could have cotton candy after breakfast?" I didn't believe these guys for a second. "Yes, Mommy. He said we could have our cotton candy after breakfast today!" Celeste insisted.

I was not to be fooled by these two. "So if I call Daddy on the phone right now, he is going to say, 'Yes, the girls can have cotton candy.'"

"Yes. Go ahead and call him." Emme says firmly. Celeste hesitated and I moved in for the kill. I picked up the phone and threatened, "I am going to dial the phone right now..."

Celeste hung her head and shook it. Emme reasoned, "Why don't you call Daddy tomorrow?"
"So you want to eat cotton candy tomorrow?" I asked her.
"No. We want to eat it today. Why do you have to call Daddy?"
"To see if he really said you could have the candy today."

I dialed the phone and Bruce answered.
I asked him. "Did you say that the girls could have cotton candy after breakfast?"
I knew what the answer was going to be.
Silence.
"Yes", he said, "I did."

I was nonplussed. This is the guy who frowns when I serve the girls mini Krusteaz pancakes before school. This is the guy who banned me from McDonalds. The one who will never let me buy Ralph's meat.

I gave the girls their treat when the doorbell rang. It was the plumber a half hour early. I was in my Victoria's secret nightshirt but the baby was in my arms covering my braless chest so I let him in.

He swept aside the toys and dirty dishes that blocked his way. He fixed our problems while the girls supervised, munching handfuls of cotton candy.

I paid the hunky 20-something handyman and thanked him. he looked me squarely in the eye and said "No. Thank you."

I like to believe he was thanking me for that little dose of reality.