My Big Surprise

Sure glad that weekend is over.
Let's move on, shall we?
What? You want to hear about my big surprise? Really? You're not humouring me, are you? You're not one of my relatives who ask, to be polite, how my book is going, then, when I ask if they want to hear a bit of it, they get that scared rabbit look in their eyes and make up an excuse about how it's time to go...
You really want to hear this?
Ok.
(I love one-sided conversations where I imagine you hanging on my every word, looking adoringly up at me like these are the finest pearls ever to drip from the lips of a middle-aged fat woman.)
Friday night and I was exhausted. It as a week straight from hell. I came home, dropped my purse in the middle of the living room floor and headed straight to bed. "Dave?" I yelled, "come snuggle."
So he did and proceeded to listen to me whine about how tired I was until the phone rang and he leapt up from the bed like a singed cat. Never have I seen him jump out of bed in such a hurry.
The conversation he had was brief.
"Who was that?" I hollered, after he had hung up.
He came back to bed so he wouldn't have to holler back. "A survey company," he said.
"Oh yeah?" I said, intrigued. "What kind of questions were they asking?"
"Y'know, usual stuff. How many people lived here, where we worked."
"It was a pretty short conversation," I said. "Usually those surveys take ages." I imagined some kind of phone scam and remembered when Dave invited a vacuum cleaner salesman to the house (kind of like inviting a vampire).
"Is there a salesman coming?" I asked. Nervous.
"No!" said Dave.
"Well it's not some kind of scam, is it? Maybe they were scoping out the place to rob us."
Dave sighed and got this funny look on his face.
"I can't lie to you," he said. "That was a delivery guy. They're bringing a dishwasher tomorrow."
A dishwasher? Gobsmack me with a feather.
1. I hate doing dishes. I used to fight with my father about doing dishes. The minute I went away to college, my mother bought a dishwasher.
2. I am 50 years old and have never had a dishwasher EXCEPT for one glorious year a few years back. Dave and I were renovating our old house in Sundridge and part of the renos including a dishwasher. IT WAS THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE. Then we sold the house. End of dishwasher.
So how does a woman who hates dishes and who has worked full time all her working days, not have a dishwasher? I don't know.
Anyway, point is, my sweetie-pie decided to surprise me with one. I am going to leave Friday night, now, because he earned himself some big brownie points for that announcement.
Saturday afternoon found me writing up in the bunkie. I heard the delivery truck pull in the driveway, so I tweeted "MY DISHWASHER IS HERE" or something similar, then ran to the window to watch my present being unloaded.
Dave went out to meet the guy. The guy said, "do you want me to take the box off here?"
Dave said, "Sure. Might as well have a look at it."
Off came the cardboard box.
There was a big paint chip/ding on the front. Right in the middle, obvious as can be.
Guy said, "Guess you don't want to take this, eh?"
Dave said, "Guess not."
Guy drove my dishwasher away.
I had that dishwasher for, oh, 30 seconds.
I miss her already. I even had a name picked out for her. Melba.

Today's a big day in our family: Angus' grade eight graduation.
It doesn't seem possible. Only yesterday he was a tiny baby listening to the CBC as I fed him and changed his diaper in the middle of the night. Now he's 14 and almost as tall as me, listening to god knows what. Don't all parents hate their children's music? Isn't it a mandatory rite of passage for parents?
I couldn't be prouder of my blue-haired boy.
I took this photo last Monday morning. His school had an awards ceremony to make the actual graduation evening a little shorter. (Great idea.) I'll be sure to have photos of Angus with his new suit and the tie that matches his hair.