And His Hands Were Not Even Idle!

When we got home Monday evening, I smelled it while petting my sweet, sweet Juno. An industrial cleanser type of odor. The kind that could melt one’s nose hairs, if one HAD nose hairs. It got stronger as I went up the steps to the porch, and rounded the corner toward the kitchen door. Oh, yeah. When I opened it and stepped inside, the stench was overwhelming.

It was like an industrial size drum (as opposed to a household size drum) of Pine Sol  burned in a train derailment. Charred chemicals. Like a truckload of those pine tree car air fresheners were smoldering in my kitchen.

Further investigation revealed that industrious Hick had also cleaned the oven. By using the INCINERATE setting for self-cleaning. AND he had also used oven cleaner on the ring thingies for my stove burners. Which did not take it well. The shine was gone. They were gray and pockmarked. The kitchen floor itself was curiously gritty and dull.

I thanked Hick for his cleaning service. But I also inquired as to the increased friction of my feet on the kitchen floor, and the loss of sheen on my formerly-silver stove burner rings. Hick cheerily responded that perhaps he needed to finish-mop the floor with plain water. And that he had not expected the burner rings to react that way to oven cleaner.

But that’s not the real issue hear. Walkng on a gritty floor, and looking like a poor hillbilly with corroded burner rings to Genius’s college friend are not too much of a hardship for Val. It’s Hick’s other antics that caused the hardship.

Tuesday morning, just as I sat back in the La-Z-Boy, I heard a CLANG. So much for my morning chair-nap. Made even more evident at 6:00 a.m., when I heard CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! That accompanied the CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! that I heard from the kitchen. And explained the TOCK! TOCK! TOCK! that assaulted my senses in the master bathroom when I went in to get dressed. I must have tuned it out as I got ready for the shower earlier. Val is sometimes groggy at 4:50 a.m., you know. But now it all made sense.

HICK HAD WOUND ALL THE CLOCKS WHILE HE WAS AT HOME MONDAY!

Without Val’s supervision, something finds work for Hick’s not-even-idle hands! He always winds the cuckoo clock, the one he bought from my grandma’s estate shortly after she passed away. That is accomplished by pulling its chains.

But now he had wound the clock on the mantel that belonged to his own grandma and grandpa, obtained from his oldest brother’s stuff after he died. I always thought it didn’t work, but I suppose Hick spirited it away another day he was off, and had it fixed.

And he wound the clock in the master bathroom that my grandma had given him while she was still alive.

Now Val must contend with a cacophony of ticking cuckoo chimes. All at a time slightly off the hour, and never synchronized with any other clock. But her kitchen floor is clean! And her stove burner ring thingies don't have burnt food on them!