Friggatriskaidekaphobia

Friday, Sept. 24
6 a.m., Maison Bean

Oh, shit, did I forget to pay the power bill? 

I call Papa from my cell phone.  He and one of his cycling buddies had left the house en route to Mobile before the birds were up.  They were joining up with other cycling cronies to begin their Annual Geriatric Ride Across Country.

“Was the power off when you left?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was dark.  You were asleep. Your room scares me in the daytime. It terrifies me in the dark.”

My bedroom is a disaster. You know—the usual. All of the junk that little Beans aren’t supposed to play with—a lone lampshade, my camera paraphernalia, a cowboy hat, a broom that for some reason I can’t fathom fascinates Moose, a laptop, an ancient laptop that sounds like it’s about to spew liquid computer parts (just in case the new laptop gets stressed out), dental floss, two pairs of glasses—a good pair and a one-armed pair in case I don’t have my contacts in and can’t find the one with two arms, piles of clothes, clean and dirty, from my skinny college jeans to maternity wear, and, of course, there’s a compass in case I need to find my way out of all the mess. 

“Why didn’t you fix it?”

“Jenny, I’m your tenant.  That’s not in our rental agreement.  Besides, it was off on the whole street—I think—it was hard to tell because everybody was asleep, but the street looked dark.”

“What rental agreement?”

I can’t get ready for work in the dark, so I call the power company emergency number, report the outage and go back to sleep.

8 a.m.  I wake up.  The power is back on. Looks like I paid the bill after all.  I am going to be late to work.

10 a.m., my office

I greet the obnoxious cretin, a retired Army colonel, who sometimes resides in my office building.  I’m somewhat fond of the OC.

“Jenn, what the hell?  Whose bed did you just roll out of?”

Sometimes the OC really annoys the hell out of me.

“That’s sexual harassment.  You are so uncouth.”

“At least I’m not wearing two different shoes.”

I look down. Oh, hell. He isn’t making this up.

I’d slipped the shoe off of my right foot to drive because that’s what I do—drive barefooted. When I got to the office, I’d slipped on one of the flipflops left on the floorboard from when I carried a slumbering Baby Bean into the house barefooted because that would be safer than wearing flipflops.

Noon, still in the office but with matching shoes

“Jenn Bean,” I answer the phone.

“You forgot to leave me a key.” It’s Belle and she can’t get into my house.  Mimi will be there shortly with two hungry little Beans, and ineptitude annoys Mimi.

“I’m on my way.”

12:10 p.m. inside the Honda on the driveway of Maison Bean

I’m holding broken plastic in my right hand and there’s a key stub in the ignition. The same thing happened a year ago. This is my only car key.

“Firetruck.  Firetruck! RED FIRETRUCK!” I pseudo curse the key. (I’ve had to clean up my language since the birth of the baby Beans. I will be humiliated, not to mention SOL, if they get kicked out of church school.)

Inside Maison Bean, I call Honda to tell them that their keys are cheap plastic bullshit.  Then I get some duct tape and jury rig the key back together so that I can drive to the dealership to be taken advantage of, and not in a good way.

12:45 p.m., Honda dealership

Rod, the glib Honda service rep, tells me that it’s going to take 45 minutes and two hundred bucks to make me a new set of keys.

My head starts to pound.  I go sit in the waiting room.

Two hours later, still at Honda

“Yo, Rod, did you forget me?  Where are my platinum keys?”

Rod disappears for a minute and returns with my keys that have, coincidentally, just been completed.

I give him my American Express.

3:30 p.m., my office

I look at the receipt that I’d brandished when I returned to show my boss that I hadn’t taken the afternoon off to go shopping. I notice a miscellaneous charge for $10.  I call Rod for an explanation.

“It’s a surcharge,” he tells me. “You know—for training, equipment—that kind of thing.”

“Rod that’s overhead, you dumbass.  That’s the cost of doing business.  You incorporate that into your labor.  You don’t add a surcharge.”

Rob is mumbling nonsense.  I am getting nowhere. I ask to speak to his manager. 

Bubba tells me that the machine they use to cut the keys costs $8,000.

“You just charged me $200 for a set of keys and you’re trying to gouge me for another $10. Rod didn’t quote that.  I. WANT. MY. TEN. BUCKS. BACK.”

Bubba realizes the futility in arguing with a fired up Mama Bean.  “The check’s in the mail,” he tells me.

Oh, great.

7 p.m., Maison Bean

Not risking any kitchen disasters after the day I’ve had, I ordered a pizza when I got home.  Hyacinth has cleaned up the floor.  A squeaky clean Jax has just finished his bath and is playing with his trains.  I decide to put Moose in the tub with me, so that the minute they go down I can jump into bed with my chardonnay and ice cream.

After I run the bath I put Moose in the tub. He grins, and like the famous Belgian cherub fountain, he tinkles.

Beautiful.

While my second bath is running, I decide I can’t wait any longer on the chardonnay.  It’s going into the bath with us. 

We three get into the bath.  It’s a little tepid. I sip my wine.  Moose stands up and grins.  You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Then he commences to tinkle in my bath again.  There is no more hot water.  I drink my wine and finish my bath in Moose pee.

After I put the little Beans to bed, I fill up my wine glass and get out the ice cream.  I open the carton.  It’s empty.

“Papa!!!”

Epilogue

If you haven’t already looked it up by now, Friggatriskaidekaphobia means an unnatural fear of Friday, the thirteenth. I have some neuroses.  This is one.  And paranoia.  On Saturday, despite my fuzzy head, I realized what had happened.  Somebody had effed up the calendar.  It had really been Friday, the thirteenth.