I was in work and my colleague, let's call her Mimi, was having one of those 'on it' days. You know? She was pulling out fridges and cleaning underneath and taking things off shelves and cleaning underneath. She had prepared everything in the kitchen and was ready for the orders to start arriving.
"I'm ready," she was boasting. "I've done everything really early. Are you impressed?"
I was nodding obediently.
Then her cleaning energies focussed on the extractor fan. She climbed up on her little fold out stool, flipped down the cover and took it off with the filter paper attached. She was really getting right inside it to clean it. The very edge tends to get dirty because the filter paper is just a little bit too short.
So she was reaching around the edges to clean it.
At this point in time, I was chatting to a customer in the shop. I had made her a coffee and now she was trying to decide what food to order for her and her daughter. We chatted a little, laughed a little, debated what we thought her toddler would enjoy when suddenly....
CRAAAASH!
Keeping my cool, I asked the customer to take a seat until her food was ready and rushed back to the kitchen, where I was greeted by this.....
(artist's impression)
Mimi looked out uncertainly from a mass of colour and smashed glass. It looked like someone had been murdered in the kitchen. Mimi was wedged onto the two work surfaces, holding herself up by her elbows. Her legs were on the floor but she wasn't using them to stand up. I now know that it is because the jar of honey which had smashed on the ground had made the floor too slippery to stand on. Like those kids' cartoons where a cat goes ice skating or something and can't stand up without falling over a second later.
What had happened was this. Mimi, in her infinite cleaning wisdom, was cleaning the extractor fan, as mentioned. She was reaching to the far corner to get to the last little bit of dirt. She couldn't quite reach but she stretched, convinced she could make it. She stretched.... And stretched....
Then the stool she was standing on slid out from under her. It went backwards, she went forwards and as she fell, her panicking clutching hands alighted upon the tray of bottled things we keep on the windowsill. It has all kinds on it - olive oil, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, honey, vinegars, sauces, jams, icing sugar....
She caught the edge of the tray with her fingers whilst falling and flipped it. Yes, she flipped a tray full of bottles across a kitchen....
Unsurprisingly, most of them hit a wall or other surface and smashed upon impact. The honey hit the floor and made the ice rink effect. One of the bottles hit a pan of oil that was sitting on a hob, adding oil into the general mix....
Unsure what had happened, I grabbed her under the arms and helped her stand before running for kitchen roll to get wiping. My eyes started to really sting after a second and I realised that the two bottles of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce must have been smashed too.
Like a fly to a flame, both had headed for Mimi's right breast and soaked it before the hitting the floor. It took a few minutes for the adrenalin to wear off but suddenly she said to me, "Do you have a spare t-shirt with you? It's really stinging."
After about an hour, the panic was over, the kitchen was clean, the broken glass was in the bin and Mimi had a clean t-shirt on. And then the laughter set in. It was so severe, neither of us could talk to customers or take orders or make coffee.
And that is what happened in work on Tuesday. There's nothing like arriving upon a murder scene in the kitchen to liven up your Tuesday!
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