Life was Good

Life was Good

Opening the door of the apartment, Alex was suddenly hit by weird smells. Not scary particularly, sort of foody. Which was odd, Janice never cooked. Thinking maybe someone brought food over, he was delighted! He wouldn’t need to cook, and he was really tired; work had been one of those pain days…

Excited, he started taking off his shoes, but, one shoe off, and he heard a big noise… Racing to the kitchen he stopped at the doorway trying to absorb the situation. It looked like a tornado hit. There was stuff on every inch of counter, and the table, and quite a bit on the floor. The floor also had an impressive puddle, obviously from the uncorked bottle of wine lying on it. Janice was standing at the sink, seemingly calm as a cucumber.

“Hi Honey!” she said, “Sorry about the clutter… I thought I’d cook tonight and surprise you!”

“Ah, well… I’m surprised! What are you cooking?” he stuttered out.

“Chicken! I have a chicken in the oven!”

Alex automatically looked over to the oven. It was off. “Ah… when are you starting? Chicken takes a while…”

“I thought I did turn it on…” she looked toward the oven, “Yes, I did, see!” She picked up the ticking timer. See, it will be done in twenty minutes! Just right for when you got home, and settled. Surprise!”

Alex stood there. Should he tell her the oven wasn’t actually on? Should he start cleaning up the mess? Should he disappear…

“Honey! Are you alright? You look sick! Let’s take you over to Urgent Care!” she reached over and turned the timer off…

On the way, Alex thought about his beautiful kitchen, his love of cooking, and exactly what to say so Janice never tried cooking again…

Life was good.