Jonah Day

Is there any other household in the universe where a hapless chicken is in danger of getting applesauce dumped on her head?

I didn't think so.

Today was a Jonah day, as Anne of Green Gables used to say, beginning with a long list of things I was determined to get done that progressed about as fast as running from a charging bull in a dream.

The phone kept ringing every time I turned around, yet by evening every one of our four cordless phones was lost. And a few hapless people called and never got an answer. Oh, yeah, the answering machine is messed up too.

I thought I would quickly whip out Jenny's dress for Keith and JoNell's wedding this Saturday, so I pinned a cute but easy pattern onto the green fabric and had the length all marked in pink chalk all around the circle skirt, when I discovered that I didn't have enough fabric left for the bodice. So I had to start all over with a different pattern.

Meanwhile, I started hosing off the porch and was boiling with resentment at Hansie the huge dog who makes my lovely porch so filthy and muddy all winter and spring it nearly makes me cry and I don't know what to do because getting rid of him is not an option and roping off the porch isn't either and neither is hosing it off when it's cold and nasty outside, not that I'm wimpy or anything.

Meanwhile the phone kept ringing.

Then we had a moms' meeting to discuss graduation details and I panicked at how much is left to do and also realized again how planning a big event is not my thing, because so little matters to me, and it matters to other people. The color of posterboard for the seniors' photo collage, how the chairs should be arranged, the color of the tablecloths. My theory is throw something together. Other women do not operate on this premise and actually want things to look coordinated and nice.

I came home from the meeting and the house reeked of fish because Steven had fried up his recent catch and the fishy bucket was left on the dishwasher and a plate of fishbones was left on the counter and the skillet was still gloppy and fishy and the drain smelled fishy and there were fishbones littered on top of the stove. Oh how a fishy smell and mess improves a Jonah day. Pun intended. Yes, Steven cleaned it up, but the smell still lingers.

Then my wonderful neighbor lady, She Who Teaches Parenting Classes About How to Teach Kids to Respect Adults, came over and Jenny kept interrupting our conversation with inane chatter about how many events she won last year at the school picnic, and oh yeah, she was second place in this one race but everything else she was first.

The crowning touch came after supper when I was cleaning a few things out of the fridge and sent Jenny out to give them to the chickens. She came back in distraught because she had, yes, dumped a container of applesauce right on top of a chicken. "I wasn't looking right then and I accidentally got it on her head and her wing and her back and I DIDN'T MEAN TO."

Well Ben was helping me and he and I paused for about two seconds and then reeled all over the kitchen howling with laughter. Jenny, who normally would laugh at this but I think suddenly has hormones now that she's nine, went out on the porch and cried. She came back in sniffing and I said, "Now listen. You have got to admit that that was funny." And she started giggling.

So Ben and Jenny went out to the chicken yard with a handful of napkins to wipe applesauce off the chicken.

I hope the whale spits me onto dry land tomorrow.