Kaboom!

By Sally Franz

I want you to join me in an experiment. I want you to recall a time when time went into slow motion. I had three such experiences this week.

Episode number one: My email announced I had just purchased a $1,999.99 drone and shipped it to someone in Kansas. I was to contact Amazon if I had any questions. Um. Yeah, I had questions. I couldn’t operate a drone if my frequent fudge buying card depended on it (AKA my life). And I am not that generous to anyone, especially any anonymous one in Kansas.

I looked at the message. Panic mixed with very long gazes of disbelief. The sound in my ears slowed down to a hum. I reread the email six times. Confusion and anxiety paralyzed me for a full half minute. Slowly, I was able to discern that something was wrong.

I not so much sprang into action. It was more like lurched haltingly. I checked my bank statements. I checked my credit cards and my Amazon account. No withdrawals. I immediately (DO NOT DO THIS) called the number on the email. The voice verified that it was a mistake. They got me to divulge my email. They wanted me to talk to the fraud department to give them more personal information.

Did I mention it was 9 a.m.? I can rise, shower, and dress by 9 a.m., but my brain never gets up before 11 a.m. When they started asking for more personal information, the alarm bells went off. I told them I was busy and would call later.

I then went online and got Amazon’s real phone number for customer service and sure enough it was a scam.  I was ticked off with myself for giving them my email verbally. But of course, they already had my email to send the message. Of course, I helped them immensely by verifying that it was an active email.

Slow motion episode number two: I was cutting off a piece of cheese from a big block. I apparently did this with a great deal of gusto because as I flourished my knife, the cutting the tip of my wonderful Cutco knife (never needs sharpening for life) . . . that tip dented, lo, pierced the side of my awaiting soda/pop can. Intro the slow-motion music. Haze the camera. An explosion of fizzy sugar juice shot through the air and hit me in the face. I looked in a slow-mo stupor at the source of the cloying moisture. ‘Ooo,’ my brain said reaching into a seldom used file, “Champagne”, “Pretty”! Next in even slower motion I watched the continued spray trying to grasp where, why, how. Finally I rose out of my reptilian brain, past sloth and darter snail to perhaps sparrow. “I should see if putting my finger in the dike will stop it (old file from 4^th grade story time: “Little Dutch Boy”). I did.

Slow motion episode three. It was bedtime, around 11:30 p.m. I put the faucet on high to try to get the hot water to come out faster. I had been soaking a trigger finger at night, which seemed to be helping. I was brushing my teeth until the hot water was ready. Kaboom! The 15” gooseneck faucet over my raised sink flew straight up in the air leaving an open pipe surging lukewarm water full power into the air about five feet. As time crawled like an earthworm in a hot puddle, I watched with awe. I was trying to register what just happened. When things so random and unexpected occur, the brain races to lace them into any existing thought file. The Bellagio fountains in Vegas? No. The fountains at the castle in Austria that soak the tourists? Closer. A scene from “The Money Pit”. Yes! Small voice in my head getting louder. “Turn off the faucet.” Second voice. “What good will that do?” Rebuttal voice, “Well, you won’t know until you try.” Faucet is turned off, water stops. Husband comes in to fix it and turns water back on three times to make sure it’s broken. More water everywhere.

So how was your week?

Sally Franz and her third husband live on the Olympic Peninsula. She has two daughters, a stepson, and three grandchildren. Sally is the author of several humor books including Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey and The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Menopause.