I Rest My Case

The Pony and I returned home from a trip to deliver Mother's Day goodies to my mom, and found a mystery waiting to be solved. It took me all of one minute. Less, probably. Because I'm THAT good!

First cat out of the bag, I noticed dirty water spots on the clean dishes in the sink drainer. Perhaps I've let it slip that I don't have a dishwasher. I might as well be a Flintstone. But then I'd at least have some prehistoric critter to clean my dishes.

I turned my attention to the cutting block, which caught my eye because the paper towel roll appeared smaller. Upon attempting to remove a paper towel to clean off my dishes formerly known as clean, I saw that they did not unroll in the direction that I prefer. Only yesterday, when I had The Pony replace a bare cardboard mini-whacker that stood where paper towels used to reside, I cautioned him to put them on the right way. He did. I even used several after his installation, and all was proper. Now the roll had flipped itself upside down, and the towels (white select-a-size with green Christmas trees) were spinning backwards, hard to rip off. The Pony heard my mutterings. "I DID put them on right!" Yes. I know he did. We took off the roll and put it back for maximum one-handed tearage.

Funny. On the bottom of that roll, now on the top, were four dirty fingerprints. Not so precise that we could CSI them. But the same hue as the spots on the clean dishes.

What's this? Farmer H opened the front door. He has a habit of coming in right after we carry in groceries and put them away. This little sortie to buy BBQ supplies for my Mother's Day feast was no different. I met him in the living room. "Hey. What's the deal with the mess in the kitchen?"

"Kitchen?"

"Yes. That room where the food lives."

"I haven't been in the kitchen."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sure. What's going on?"

"Are you sure you don't want to tell me anything about the kitchen?"

"There's nothing to tell. Why?"

"The paper towels?"

"Oh. I used a paper towel."

"There are dirty fingerprints all over the top of the paper towels. I told you before that you've got to stop ruining a whole roll by getting those dirty fingerprints on the edge of each one."

"Dirty? That roll isn't dirty."

"Oh, really? Let's take a look."

"Huh. Okay! I flipped the roll over so you wouldn't see the dirty fingerprints!"

"And you splashed your dirty handwater onto my clean dishes. Probably washing poopy eggs in my sink."

"I didn't do anything to the sink."

"Come on. Let's look. Paper towel fingerprints. Dirty water spots on the clean dishes. Same color. Don't you agree?"

"Yes. I splashed water in the sink while I was washing the eggs."

We're making progress. I seldom get a confession. I attribute my success to Mother's Day guilt.