found drama

I am washing the dishes.  There are a few plates and bowls but the sink is filled mostly with cutlery.  As usual, I finish with the plates and bowls and pots and pans first.  Moving on to the silverware, I notice that many of the spoons need to be thrown into the garbage.  The first one seems nearly salvageable; it’s bent and dented and there is a nick along the edge — like the whole thing has been through the garbage disposal (except that we do not have one).  The next spoon is in even worse shape; it is bent nearly in half, a hole has formed right in the center of it.  The few dirty knives and forks seem fine but spoon after tarnished spoon is blackened and riddled with holes and other problems.  Most of the spoons I throw in the trash.  It is frustrating and embarrassing.

I retire to the living room to find R.G. (and B. & T.?) sitting there, the blinds drawn such that only some of the sunlight comes in.  R.G. motions toward a book case with glass doors; the shelves are filled with bottles of expensive and rare craft beers.  He offers me “the last” of some specific type; it is corked much like a bottle of champagne and I set it aside for himself.  He indicate that he is going to have one of the others but that he cannot manage to get them open.  (“Would you mind giving it a try?”)  I pull out on of the bottles and examine it.  The neck is curved and coiled like a cucumber tendril, the cork jammed into those curves.  No corkscrew I have ever seen could possibly traverse that path.  However, attached to the top of the cork is a sharply curved spike, like a small rhinoceros horn.  I grab onto it and ease the cork out, slowly, with much careful maneuvering and grinding of teeth.

About Rob Friesel