Win. Win.

A few days ago we had a situation.

Tessie made banana bread after dinner and I succumbed to leaving the baking and dinner dishes soaking in the sink instead of washing them all. Mid afternoon the following day I had gotten “enough” done for work for the day and decided to deep clean the fridge. The deep clean that involves filling the sink with all the containers that had just the tiniest bit of moldy food in them. The deep clean that involves removing the drawers and shelves and (in this case) balancing them on top of the sink full of already dirty dishes and scrubbing them clean. My Every Plate box arrived. I put everything away. I prepped salads for upcoming lunches. I felt good.

Then I started loading the dishwasher.

You know how sometimes you see something in the corner of your eye and think “Omigosh.. for a second I thought that was a mouse?” Well guess what? This time it actually was a mouse. Dead. Super dead. It had been floating in my kitchen aid mixer bowl for the entire day after an apparent drowning the night before.

I’ll give that a second.

So while you were deep cleaning your fridge you balanced the shelf on that very bowl? Yes.

So since that bowl already had water in it you added more things to it as you cleaned out the fridge? Yes.

So you saw it JUST moments before you grabbed the bowl and emptied it of water…. which would have caused that nasty dead body to potentially slither into the garbage disposal? Again, Yes.

S happened to be close, so he came home and disposed of the thing and then loaded the dishwasher while I started searching for a replacement bowl for my mixer.

All of this happens in a week where I was once again immersed in the never ending back and forth with the HOA and the Property Manager about the lack of the claim and the next steps and the finger pointing about how this is my fault it is being delayed and the rage that always accompanies it.

We had decided the week before that we would take the "shock and awe” approach to convincing his Mom to not return to the townhome and to fix it to sell and be done with it. We were just waiting for the right time to give her the numbers. Ultimately, we know that just choosing finishes for a buyer and not negotiating a rebuild with her is smoothest course of action. (Remember the remodel and the new lights and the reupholster of the furniture? Remember the gleeful look in her eyes about the idea of a remodel?)

And then she decided on her own she isn’t moving back there.

Now I’ll give that one a second.

She decided on her own she isn’t moving back there. “Just paint it all white and be done with it"

It is a joyful scenario when the thing you have been dreading goes away. Sometimes the thing is your former roommate coming to terms with what you told her 7 months ago. Sometimes its that nasty mouse in your kitchen snacking on butter and then slipping off the granite into the kitchen sink where a bowl of water is waiting. Both gross situations gone in the space of a few days.

Win. Win.