Volcanic Coffee

Monday night I came home and Art proudly asked, "Did you notice the steps?" He had shoveled all the snow off the steps outside and put salt down. I could tell by his enthusiasm that he was so pleased that his hard work ensured that neither one of us would bust our ass when we left in the morning.

At midnight, I was trying to send him an e-card at my computer and I heard him coming downstairs to the living room. As I typed faster, all of a sudden I heard, "BAM...baddah bam-bam!"

I turned around just in time to see his arms and legs in the air and his coffee shooting out of his cup like a brown volcano. He landed with legs and arms still frozen in the air, sitting in a pool of coffee, and holding his breath with his face all squished up . His body was like the letter V for several seconds. While I quickly debated about calling an ambulance vs. getting a cab to the hospital, he finally exhaled "aaaaahhhhhh, my toe!"

First of all, I can't believe he fell down half a flight of stairs and all he hurt was his toe. I thought for sure we'd be out shopping for a new hip this week. After he spoke, it was a littler harder to imagine the 911 call, "yes, come quickly, send an Ambulance, he fell and hurt his...what honey? ....his toe! His TOE! Oh my God! It might be broken. I'm scared to move him... help, send someone QUICK!"

Once ice and Neosporin had been administered he tooted his own horn. "Hey, did you notice I didn't get mad and cuss like I normally do when I'm hurt?" I hadn't noticed. And that's the shame of human nature. When someone is doing something wrong you notice it like a giant flashing neon sign, whereas doing the right thing gets the attention of a small post-it.

With his foot propped he went to bed without showering. I tried to overlook the fact that he smelled like a giant coffee cup. Do you know how hard it is to fall asleep to the smell of coffee? I felt like I was sleeping in a diner booth.

In the middle of the night, I woke up because he's simultaneously talking in his sleep, rowing and smiling. As I'm watching him I realize there really is a separation of right and left brain because my mind began to wander in two separate directions. I am concurrently thinking things like, "I'm hungry. I want some waffles!" and "Is something burning? The house is on fire!" Then simultaneous panic thoughts, "Oh no, we don't have any maple syrup!" and "Where are our emergency exits if we can't get out the front door?" And I was able to jointly sort logistics "Is the rusty old fire escape structurally safe enough to use?" and "how old are those frozen waffles in the frig?"

Half convinced I'm in some coffee-sniffing dream-induced insanity and the other half convinced that downstairs is now a blazing inferno, I finally pull the plug on his crew dreams.

"Hey, does it smell like something is burning?"

"Huh?" He shoots out of bed and shouts, "Yeah, something's burning! Something's on fire!"

Then, like the emperor, he realizes he has on no clothes, "You go check it out!"

"What?"

"I'm not dressed."

I don't know if I went to check it out so that the arsenic burglar wouldn't see his manhood, or if I was protecting his willy from any unnecessary smoke inhalation, but I open the door and realized there was indeed smoke. Horror filled me as I recognized the familiar smell. Someone had burnt a perfectly good waffle.

I walked all around the house and couldn't find where it came from because the smell was everywhere. I think the neighbors must have gotten the middle of the night munchies, then fallen back asleep before they finished cooking.

One morning a month ago I woke up to the yummy smell of pancakes and Art was already up, so I thought he was going to bring me breakfast in bed, but alas, it was just the neighbors torturing me. It's one thing to hear your neighbors hammering, playing their crummy music and having sex, but it's more of an intrusion to smell them. I think there should be some sort of smell ordenance passed. Although, I envision the cop showing up at the door being more amused than threatening, "excuse me sir, we got a call about a waffle complaint...mind if I come in and take a sniff around?"