Sharon's Exciting Life as a "Single"

Except that, between me, myself, and I, there are really three of us getting into adventures!

Well, it was Tuesday night. My apartment-mate was off watching a movie at a friend's house. Having been inspired by my Indian colleagues who always brought delicious dishes for lunch, I decided to try cooking up something interesting. So I pulled out the oil and all the spices I had, and started chopping onions and vegetables.

Before I even know the oil was heating up in the pan, the smoke alarm went off! That was startling. I used one of those handy barstools to take it down and tried heating up the pan without the oil in it the next time. This went better.

I was having a lot of fun frying up my spices, when it occurred to me that this would be a perfect time to put a music CD into the laptop in my bedroom, turn on the speakers and get beautiful sound by which to cook. It took a while to get the laptop booted up and password-ed, since I kept getting distracted by adding the vegetables and chickpeas to fry. I had checked and everything was plugged in. The laptop power, the speaker cord. I put in the CD and flicked the speaker and -

nothing happens! What? How can that be? Yes, everything's plugged in, both the battery and speakers into the the extension cord - oh, is that the lamp cord and not the speaker cord? No, the lamp's plugged into the wall. So what's the deal? Did I somehow leave everything plugged in that night when the power must have blinked since the microwave clock was unset again in the morning and that somehow zapped the speaker system completely? What?! How can this happen to my lovely speakers? Can I live without ever hearing music of beautiful sound quality again? Oh, this is so sad....

Oh wait, the extension cord isn't plugged into the wall!

I turned off the heat under the (hopefully) deliciously spiced and fried chickpeas and suddenly remembered that it was high time to check the oil in the car. True, it was about 9 o'clock, but there was still a little light, and even if it did turn out to be too dark, I could always pull out the flashlight. Off I ran through the long damp grass - after turning off the stove, surprise, surprise! I got the hood up and the oil stick out, just enough light to see - wiped to put it back in and double-check... except I couldn't quite see to put it back in. Time for the flashlight! Ran back in and started hunting it up, only to realize that I really had no idea where it was, since everything was still all misplaced and un-put-away from the move. Frantically hunting through all the boxes, bags, and closet shelves, with the hood still propped up and the oil stick still out on the engine cooling off in the gathering dusk... I couldn't find the flashlight and I couldn't go ask the neighbors - that would just be too bad - and I would have to leave the hood up and the oil open all night...

There it was!

My goodness, that was close. I almost had to resort to turning on my headlights to see if they shed any faint rays backward into the hood, which of course they didn't and was completely pointless.

By the time Stacey got home, the car hood was back down and the kitchen cleaned up and I just had to put the smoke alarm back and test it, which made it beep, which made me almost fall off the stool and break my neck and certainly made Stacey laugh!

Tuesday night was a very, very enjoyable night.