zucchini-to-be

every year, i think to myself, "ok, i won't plant any zucchini this year because we never eat it." and every year, i plant zucchini and then we never eat it. i guess you could say i just don't learn.


mom called me around 10:00 last night as i was driving home from an overly-long and mosquito-laden firefly program at oak knoll. once i managed to locate my phone, i listened to the voice mail from her, in which she told me to call her back as soon as i got the message. because she usually doesn't entertain anything other than emergency or "big news" phone calls after 9:30pm and because her voice sounded more than a little giddy, i realized that julie was probably pregnant again (i'm like a regular sherlock holmes putting two and two together on that one). but when i called my mom back, it turns out that she was so excited because she thought i had come home for the weekend. she had based her sherlock holmsing on the fact that, upon returning from a week of babysitting in vermont, she found the dryer running and two baskets of laundry on the table. since my brother has moved out of state and no longer comes over to do laundry and since all the clothes were pretty small, she assumed they belonged to me. once we determined that they were not my clothes, mom started to get a little confused. she thought maybe she should call the police.

mom and dad do have a very nice washer and dryer. they're the ultra-efficient kind where the washer uses only 2 tablespoons of water and clothes come out of the dryer ironed and folded. any thieves who broke into their house would definitely be tempted to take the washer and dryer but might be a little challenged by their size. i can imagine a thief coming in and stealing the tv, computer, and indoor/outdoor thermometer, but being stymied by the washing machine and then saying to his thief buddy, "dude, it's such a nice system, but there's really no way we can get it in the van." and the other thief saying, "well, maybe we should just do a couple of loads here before we head out."

fortunately, before mom had to attempt to convince the altamont police department of the plausibility of this scenario ("i understand, mrs. slack. but you say none of the clothing is black? i'm sorry, it just doesn't add up."), our neighbor, mr. jackson, came over to explain what was going on. his family's dryer had broken and they had an emergency laundry situation on their hands since they were leaving for vacation the next day. the jacksons often take care of the pets when my folks are away, and chances are mr. jackson knew exactly how nice my parents' dryer was. the laundry in the basket belonged to his 12-year old daughter, tara. we were all quite relieved to get to the bottom of this mystery.

and my sister is not, as it turns out, pregnant.