Our Sitcom Moment

Ben likes to make fun of my love of married couple sitcoms – Everybody Loves Raymond and Rules of Engagement being my top favorites.  I’m not sure what it is about them, the marital spats, the witty repartee, the inevitable happy kiss and make up (all within a tidy 24 minutes); I just love them and my Netflix account would agree.  Ben on the other hand, while he doesn’t dislike them, does not share my enthusiasm.  He even goes as far sometimes as to chastise me occasionally that our lives are not syndicated and that the back and forth between Audrey and Jeff, or the ridiculous situations of Ray and Debra are not an accurate representation of real life couples.  I may have actually agreed with him too, up until yesterday that is.

On Sunday, I was making ribs, the kind that slowly bake all day in a 200 degree oven.  Great for dinner, not so great when you don’t like to leave the house with the oven on.  Knowing that I was stuck to the apartment all day, I took advantaged and spent the time cleaning.  I even did my most hated chore, mopping the floor (Kitchen and bathroom!  Aren’t you proud mom?).  Later, Ben went to the gym as I stayed home and used the time to finish cleaning up my kitchen.  I took the cookies I was baking out of the oven and left them to cool on a rack.  I washed all the dishes and had them sitting on the counter to air dry.  I was getting the coffee maker all ready for Monday morning when Ben got home, kissed me hello and went about making his after workout protein shake.

As he was pouring the protein powder into the old salsa jar he uses to make his shakes, I chastise him to be careful and not spill on my newly mopped floor.  He obliged and went to make the shake over the sink.  I turned to put the coffee grounds in the pot, and not even 2 seconds later, almost at the exact same moment that Ben was complimenting my clean kitchen, there came a loud “POP”.

I turned around to see Ben, shirtless and covered in chocolate protein shake half mixed with almond milk.  I surveyed the remainder of the kitchen.  The floor was covered in chocolaty speckles.  The dishes suffered a similar fate.  Everywhere I looked, the cabinets, the microwave, the oven, the fridge, covered in brown splats of gritty chocolate protein powder and almond milk.  The fresh baked cookies I had just pulled from the oven not 20 minutes ago?  Not even they were spared.

It hit all the way up (and down) the cupboards and covered every dish, save one.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  So I did both, a little hysterically, pointing to all the places the explosion had managed to coat, confusing Ben to no end.  He didn’t know if I was angry or amused or if I had just lost it completely, until I started bemoaning the loss of my clean floor.  It had barely lasted 3 hours.  If it wasn’t completely covered in protein shake, I might have sagged to the floor in despondency.

My precious, previously so clean, floor.  Maybe even more horrifying, the fresh baked chocolate chip meringues!

Ben says that real life isn’t like the sitcoms at all.  I now have just cause (and pictorial evidence) to refute the claim once and for all.  For if it was true, the chocolaty explosion would have happened Saturday, all over my already sticky floor.

PS - My apologies for the terrible phone pictures.  My type A personality demanded that I clean up the mess as immediately as possible.