“Honey, have you seen my grill tools?” asked my husband, as he ran in from his grilling post on the back deck.
I pointed to the cabinet over the fridge.
“No, those are my BACK-UP grill tools,” he clarified. “I’m looking for my GOOD grill tools.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew what grill tools he was looking for. They were the uber-expensive ones in their own titanium case. They came with a matching monogrammed branding iron and a lifetime guarantee against rust, dullness, and Kryptonite. They were the ones that had been missing in action for about a year.
“You keep asking me and I keep telling you I don’t know where they are,” I responded.
He mumbled something under his breath.
“WHAT?” I demanded.
“I think you put them away somewhere and forgot where,” he said a little louder.
I glared and thrust a lesser grill spatula at him. “Since I am not the one who uses the grill tools, I don’t think I’m the one who put them away somewhere and forgot where.” Although I was miffed, I had to admit, this was not a completely unjust accusation. In past cleaning frenzies, I have been known to move things from one location to another in an attempt to create more storage space than we actually have. The problem is, though, sometimes I move stuff… and then move it again… and then, maybe one more time, until eventually I can’t remember the last place I moved it to.
With any luck, the thing I moved ends up back in the first location and no one is the wiser. But sometimes, the occasional object gets relocated and for the life of me, I have no idea where it is. Although I am quick to blame it on another family member, or a ghost, or the same black hole that snatches socks from my washing machine, the sad truth is, if something is missing, I am usually the culprit.
Still, I was pretty sure that the missing grill tool case was not my doing. I had tried to move it once before and when I couldn’t find a pantry shelf or closet that would accommodate it, I gave up and left it in the kitchen. Where it went after that, though, was beyond me.
“Maybe it was stolen?” I suggested to my husband
“You think someone broke into our house, ignored the TVs and computers, and just ran off with my grill tools?”
“They are in a titanium case,” I said. “And there is that monogrammed branding iron in there. Maybe a depraved cowboy broke into our house and took the case so he could steal cattle and use the branding iron with your initials to throw the police off his trail.”
“A depraved cowboy?” He wondered. “In the suburbs?”
“Yes,” I said emphatically.
“You sticking with that story?”
“I am,” I said.
“OK. Let me know when you find my grill tools.”
Two days later, I opened a linen cabinet that I open multiple times every day, and there, right in plain sight, under a bunch of tablecloths, was the titanium grill tool case. It had been a year, so my memory was fuzzy. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I did kind of remember that I had stashed the case on that shelf. I felt terrible and immediately regretted blaming my husband for my actions. I knew that the key to a great marriage is to admit when you have made a mistake, so I picked up the phone to call my husband.
“Great news!” I exclaimed. “The cowboy returned your grill case!”
©2018, Beckerman. All rights reserved.
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