You know how there are times when your blog goes quiet because nothing much is going on? That’s usually when something happens. I go through these cycles of work work work which is usually interspersed with too tired to think let alone be coherent. Top that off with a little “my mother is coming up to visit and expects easter dinner” and you have the perfect storm.
Also, most of my immediate family has heard the story already, so I’ve suffered the razzing in private already. I can take laying it bare for the internet. (to be fair, my twitter followers heard about it too, cuz really. It’s a doozy.)
So there I was. Tired. Overheated and frantic for some OCD reason. I was up, cranky, hit my work stuff fast then set to cleaning my house. But first! I remembered I had to stop and eat breakfast.
For the past few months, breakfast has been peanut butter on toast. We did buy an entire 10kg bucket of pb remember… On this particular day, the last small jar in the cupboard was not, in fact, one of the ones we filled from the bucket, but the last jar we bought at the store. And it had settled.
If you’ve never bought natural peanut butter before let me telly you this – it separates. The oil goes to the top and the crushed peanuts sink to the bottom. It is not a delicious smooth creamy jar of peanutty spread, but an ocean of oil brimming over the top with a Titanic sinking rock underneath.
I got out my trusty butter knife and started to stir. It slopped. My arm got tired. And really – stirring with a knife? Not the most brilliant of ideas.
“I know just the thing,” my brilliant sleep-deprived and anxious self thought, “I’ll just use the mixer.”
yes, yes I did think that was a reasonable conclusion to solve my immediate problem. I got out our little hand mixer, stuffed one beater in it – because two won’t fit in the jar, duh – and stabbed it in the quasi-solid jar of peanut butter.
I turned it on.
It was hard going at first. The motor complained and the oil sloshed over the side. Some of it was mixing, but very sloppy near the top.
And then my hand slipped.
You know how in movies dire things happens and the camera slows down? It was just like that. I saw my hand trying to hold the slippery oiled jar. I saw the beater not spinning down deeper, but higher into the goopy bits. I saw my other hand (TRAITOR!) lift the mixer a bit.
And then we go back to full speed as peanut butter started to cover every available surface in the immediate vicinity. The electric kettle. The toaster. The teapot. The mixer itself. Me. The counter.
My shirt.
My slippers.
The floor.
Did I mention my mother was on her way? No? With Carl, and San too?
“Crap.” I said.
Meaghan came running in the room, yelling. She ran out again, then came back in. click click click. The kid got her camera for evidence.
My husband, lovely man that he is, was outside. Of course just then I heard him come in. “Don’t,” I yelled, “don’t you say a word.”
Smart man that he is, he shook his head at me and left.
Eventually I got it cleaned up, had people over later than I thought, and laughed about it. In the retelling to Sarah though, she reminded me this is not unusual. “What?” I said, “I’m not that bad!”
“Mom,” she reminded me, “The stove CAUGHT ON FIRE.”
“Hey, that bread turned out fine after your father put them out. And we lowered the rack.”
From the other room, Meaghan tried to be helpful. “You put a SPOON in the BLENDER! With NO LID!”
“But I was pregnant!” I whined. “All I wanted was a milkshake.”
It’s okay though. They love me anyway. At least they keep eating my food. 
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