Through the Courtesy of Hick's Two Hands

Val has been feeling a bit...um...indisposed...of late. No other complaints. Oh, who are we kidding? Sure, there are complaints. But no symptoms that would go along with indisposedness. No nausea or vomiting or fever or snot or phlegm. I haven't been eating six-week-old bologna from the back of Frig II. I haven't chewed on my sweet, sweet Juno's nose recently. Or sampled those PEEPs that Hick and The Pony brought me from Goodwill in May. So there's no reason for me to keep dashing to use the facilities due to my indisposedness.

Until now.

I think I know what might have touched off my touchy digestive system. When The Pony and I cruised up the driveway in T-Hoe this afternoon, we [FORESHADOWING] spotted [FORESHADOWING] Hick walking around on the brick sidewalk in front of the homestead, spraying weed-killer in the cracks. We parked and went inside. Hick came running for lunch. I could just as well have been Pavlov missing his clapper, ringing a silenced dinner bell.

Hick made a beeline for the sink. Most likely because I was standing there fixing up my Hi-C Fruit Punch that I got in town. Hick shuffled around to the other side of the kitchen peninsula, on the back side of the sink. You'd think a grown man would know how to make it work, especially now that his orientation made the hot water actually flow when the lever was moved to the left, rather than the oppositeness of how he originally installed it.

"WAIT A MINUTE! You're not done. Look at that!"

The almond-colored sink looked like the south end of a northbound appaloosa. It was dotted with drops of dirty water. I daresay one might have sopped it up with a sponge, and had enough to squeeze out and make a proper New Jersey Dirty-Water Cocktail.

"What? Oh. I couldn't get to the sink with YOU there! Get out of the way." Hick bellied up to the sink and slopped water to and fro to rinse the dirty spots down the drain. "There! Are you happy now?"

Surely that was a rhetorical question! I was NOT happy. Because in the sink drainer, where my CLEAN dishes had resided since last night (let's not forget that Val has no dishwasher save her own two hands) was a white bowl with THREE SPOTS OF DIRTY WATER!

Thank goodness I had tipped that bowl so that the business part of it was facing down, and the dirt and weed-killer from Hick's hands was on the butt-end of it.

How many evenings had Hick washed his hands (and fresh-found eggs) in my sink, even though he has been warned to do that outside at the well-head faucet?

It boggles the mind. And the gut.