As I was doing the breakfast dishes yesterday, a glass slipped out of my hands and fell right onto the coffee mug.

More accurately, it fell directly onto the handle of the coffee mug. 

The result you can see in this photo.

But that wasn’t the end of my troubles on this Friday the double thirteenth! Well, if the gospel writers can play with numbers, so can I; doesn’t mean I believe in numerology.

When I finished washing the dishes and let the water drain, I turned on the garbage disposal as usual, and it made a terrible earth shaking clatter!

So I immediately turned it off, and when the water finished draining, I reached into the drain to see what was the matter.

I could feel something sticking up—was it a spoon?—but I couldn’t pull it out. 

Normally I check with my hands to make sure there is nothing left in the water before turning on the disposal, but the breaking of one of my favorite cups must have shaken me up.

I spent about fifteen minutes trying to pull out that blasted spoon, even resorting to a pliers, but nothing I did could budge it.

This was a job for Express Drains!

It had been just over a year since I last called them, and when I did, the friendly woman who answered the phone told me that most likely they could help with this problem, although it was not a clogged drain like the previous two times. She said someone would call me when they were on their way before two PM. I figured that meant they’d call at the worst possible time when I was trying to eat lunch.

Wrong!

He called about quarter of noon. He said he’d be here in five minutes.

Yeah right. I began to fix myself a cup of coffee (in my Sondheim mug), figuring I’d have nice long wait.

The coffee had barely finished brewing when there was a knock on the door.

I guess he really meant five minutes.

He wasn’t inside long before he asked if he had been here before, about a year ago. Yes, that seemed right.

He had been here with John to fix my clogged drain the last time.

“John,” he said, “is a tall, older guy.” 

“And he did all the talking,” I said, “and he let you do all the work?” 

“That’s right.” He laughed.

“Yes, I remember him. We had a great time. That’s why I don’t remember you, because you were buried under the sink nearly the whole time.” 

He told me that John received a promotion and although he likes his new job, he misses meeting the customers because he likes to talk.

I explained what happened, showed the broken mug and handle, and told him about the terrible noise when I turned on the disposal. I thought there was a spoon in there.

He reached in and pulled out the little bit of broken mug handle that was causing the problem.

It wasn’t a spoon at all! 

So I felt a lot better knowing I hadn’t really screwed up after all. 

What had happened was that the handle had split into two pieces, but I only noticed the one. The smaller piece had ended up going down the drain. When I heard the racket, I assumed a spoon had gone down, and when I felt down there, what I must have mistakenly taken for the spoon was a blade. If I had only realized the handle had broken into two pieces… Oh, well. The problem was solved.

Then we chatted a bit and I told him to say hi to John. I said that I’d be writing this up on my blog, and I asked him his name. 

“Sean,” he said. “I normally wear a shirt with my name on it.”

Thank you, Sean!