It was a lazy Sunday morning. Uneventful up to this point, I had started making Jell-O, my assigned task for Family dinner. A mixture of Strawberry and Raspberry seemed a delicious combination, and they were all set to chill in the Refrigerator. My brand new refrigerator, which any bowl of Jell-O would be privileged to gel in, sat gleaming in it's innocence and perfection. The only obstacle left in the Jell-O's completion was transportation from the counter to the fridge, myself, and gravity. My mistake, overestimating myself and underestimating gravity.
The transportation of the first 13x9 dish was a success. The second was a bit sloshier with the absence of fruit in the mix, and a tiny drop slipped over the edge of the dish and onto the top shelf of the fridge. "Wouldn't it be a disaster if I spilled any more of this red liquid death," I thought cockily to myself as I continued to slide the dish into security. But certainly nothing that awful happens in real life to real people with real brand new refrigerators.
And then the dish fell. I had removed my hand from the bottom to slide it the rest of the way into the fridge before there was enough leverage already in place to hold it securely and back out of the fridge it came. I vaguely remember someone screaming "Nooooooooo", later realizing it was me as I stood there watching the carnage unfold. Like a red tidal wave, it covered and destroyed everything in its path, and my outstretched arms and protruding belly were no exception. As much the victim as the perpetrator, I could merely stand there trying to grasp the severity of what had really just happened. Lance raced downstairs to see what had caused the commotion, took one look at me with my arms, feet, and entire front covered in an otherwise lovely shade of red, smiled and said, "This looks like a crime scene."
The next hour was spent scrubbing every bottle, jug, piece of tupperware, nook and cranny, and my entire kitchen floor. Everywhere you looked there was more red. Lance was laughing. I was not. I must have been a site as my sweet daughter kept asking if I was "Okay". Many towels valiantly lost their lives that day, but I am happy to say that thanks to the quick action of the rescue team, the Fridge was saved and my kitchen restored. My pride in not being able to successfully make Jell-O, however, is still on the mends. I fear my family will soon start assigning me to bring the water to family dinners, but at least my hands and feet have returned to their normal shade of pink.
