The day started poorly.
“Did you make any coffee?” I said.
“We’re out of coffee.” she replied.
I checked the bin, she was right. I hate that, no coffee. A day with without coffee is a little like a day without clean underwear. You make it through the day, but it’s somehow not right. So I made it through the day sans coffee. I had clean underwear.” How was your day dear”, she said as I walked through the door. “Fine how was yours?”
Well, I was having lunch with Carol today and she said, “I broke my ribs”
And I said, “Tell Me”
She said, “You don’t want to know.”
“Of course I want to know.”
“Well, I was shopping.”
“You broke your ribs shopping.”
“Yes, you see I was at Bed Bath and Beyond”
“Beyond what?”
“You know the store Bed Bath & Beyond.”
“Oh the one by Wal-Mart.”
“Yes, anyway I’m looking for a bedspread”
“Yes”
“And I see one in this bin.” she said
“A bin”
“Yes a giant metal bin on wheels, and in the bottom of the bin is a bedspread.”
“The bedspread is in the bin.”
“Right.”
“Well I reach over the edge of the bin trying to reach the bedspread, but I can’t reach it its a big bin. So I stretch as far as I can, I have a finger on the bedspread, and that’s when It happened.”
“When what happened?”
“I fell into the bin.”
“Did you fall all the way into the bin?”
“Not exactly”
“Huh”
“Well I was half in and half out, but mostly in. You know like a teeter-totter when the person on the other end is a little bit heavier. Well like, my heavy end was in the bin, and the bin edge was digging into my ribs, and I heard a popping sound, that’s when they broke.”
“How did you get out of the bin?”
“You don’t want to know”
“You’re right I don’t want to know. Did you go to the doctor?”
“No, there is nothing the doctor could do about broken ribs.”
“If you didn’t go to the doctor how do you know broke your ribs.”
“It’s something you just know.”
“That’s it, Carol broke her ribs falling into in bin”, I said.
“Yes, where are my lemon fruit bars”, she said.
“I wasn’t finished with the ribs”, I said
“Well I am and I want a fruit bar.”
“In the freezer, bottom bin”, I said.
“There not there you ate them”
“I didn’t eat them”
“The box is empty. I had one last night and now they’re gone.”
“Well I only ate one.”
“Just one?”
“Yes just one.”
“But there were six.”
“I didn’t eat six I ate one. Of course if you ate one last night I couldn’t have eaten more than five but I only had one so there should be four left.”
“The box is empty,” she said
“Did you look in the bin?”
“What bin?”
“The bin in the bottom of the freezer. They probably fell out.”
“I’ll check”
“Did you find them?”
“Yes, I found them.”
“Do I get an apology?”
“No, I found them in the bottom of the bin.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Well, if they had still been in the box you would have eaten them. You didn’t know they had fallen into the bin.”
“I told you to check in the bin.”
“Yes but you didn’t know they were there or you would have eaten them.”
“I see.”
Sometimes you just cut your losses. I’ve ‘bin’ there before done that.
