Never Doubt the Fairies

Every Friday in 2006, I cooked large amounts of food to take to my sick aunt’s place. One Friday, I was so exhausted I was barely able to load the car with my baby, the food, and myself to let the car carry us to my aunt’s for the weekend.

As I locked the house behind me, I commented that the fairies were going to have to step up and do the dishes. If they didn’t, the immense dried-on mess I would return to would just be too much to face. But there were no fairies. No one was checking on me and no one had a key, but I let myself really enjoy the laugh anyway.

After returning home, I took a breath and went to handle the disaster. The pots, pans, muffin tins, and utensils towered over the sink. I grabbed the large stock pot first and ran water to start it soaking… but it was spotless.

A chill went through me. I thought back HARD about whether I had rinsed anything: I had NOT. So I just set the pot aside to do the rest. But… muffin tins: spotless, cheese shredder: spotless, inside and out. Every last utensil, every cup to the bottom, every surface including the sink itself: spotless. I could have taken everything out of the sink and put it back into the cupboards!

So I sat down again. Thinking even harder and in tears. Did I forget cleaning everything?

The next morning I went into the back bathroom. The cabinet under the sink was open and three black kittens disappeared into a hole in the bottom. While I was out, a stray mama kitty and her six kittens had broken in and licked everything clean!