Short story
It was supposed to be the best weekend in my life. Simply perfect. My parents left for some family wedding and I had told them some simple excuses about tests and exams. It worked. They left on Friday evening with my nine-year old sister. The wedding was not far from Warsaw but they wanted to help with preparations. I had prayed for such a silence for a long, long time. I was finally alone, at home, the beautiful Saturday and Sunday waiting for me! Hurray! The perfect vision was fulfilled because there was her – the most interesting girl I had ever known. I had the best plan in the world – I would invite her for dinner and then we will go to cinema. Dinner for six, cinema for eight. And the girl will be mine.
On Saturday I woke up after sleeping for twelve hours – it was almost one o’clock. And she was coming at six! I didn’t have anything to eat and the flat was dirty. I decided to go shopping first and then to change into a cleaning lady for a moment – it was worth it! She likes French, so she must like French cuisine. I found a recipe for a French soufflet in the Internet. Looked simple – only eggs, flour and cheese. And how delicious! Like in a luxurious restaurant! I bought everything and some ice‑cream, and a bottle of expensive French wine, hoping she would appreciate the fact that I spent half of my pocket money. Then I suddenly remembered I didn’t have any tablecloth. I ran to the shops but it was too late to buy anything. Finally, when I returned home, the only thing I found were the courtains from the dining room. They looked elegant and expensive. Perfect for a tablecloth.
It was three o’clock already and I got rather hungry. I noticed with panic that I had bought only some things for dinner, but nothing for lunch. Well, there were the eggs… probably nothing happens if I didn’t take ten, but eight eggs for the soufflet. It will be just smaller. I heard my mobile. Mum. “Hi, honey”, she said with sweet voice. “Please, could you do the washing? The washing machine is filled in, so just switch it on.” Well, why not? I pressed the button on and returned to the eggs.
Everybody knows that the quickest way to cook things is to put them into a microwave oven, so I did it and pressed start button. I was wondering if two minutes were enough when there was an explosion, a great bang and stinking smoke from the microwave. Oh, my God! I shouted, switched it off and unplugged quickly. The smell was awful, so I opened the windows and started to clean the microwave. It was almost done! Having control again I decided to vacuum the carpet. It looked simply awful! I took the vacuum cleaner and plugged it in. It didn’t seem to work very well. I must say it seemed to give out more dust than there was before. I decided to look inside and change the bag perhaps. It wouldn’t open although I tried hard. I used all the power and finally it opened! It opened and the bag was torn and all the dust and rubbish on the carpet! Aagh! I shouted! Down on my knees I was trying to clean the carpet. “Don’t worry” – I said to myself. You have a lot of time. You have an hour and this is enough to clean it and to prepare the soufflet. It’s plenty of time. I left the dust on the carpet for a moment and decided to prepare the soufflet. I put the eggs, milk, flour to the blender. “At least this will be easy” – I thought – and pressed start. There was a rumbling noise and then I felt pieces of a strange substance falling on me from the ceiling. Oh, my God! I didn’t put the cover on the blender! Somebody rang the bell. “If it is one of the neighbours complaining about the noise, I’ll kill him” – I thought. I opened the door quickly. And I saw her.
She was standing there, fresh and beautiful. “Hi” – she said. And gazed at me. “Please, come in” – I stuttered. I felt my face was red but my reflection in the mirror proved it was the worst it could be. There were fragments of uncooked soufflet on my forehead. “I came earlier” – she said. “I thought perhaps I could help”. She looked at the room. It was a disaster. “Well, I tried my best, but… can I invite you to a French restaurant?” – I asked, having decided to take some money from my special “ski-bank”. “OK” – she said. “But… well, I don’t want to make you worried, but there is some water near the bathroom door. Didn’t you want to have a bath or something?” I shouted and ran to the bathroom. When I opened the door, I saw a river of water going in my direction. The washing machine!
We spent an hour trying to get rid of the water, using all the towels and cloths that I had at home. I looked at my watch with panic, but decided the restaurant would still serve us some food. The girl laughed all the time even though her blouse was half wet and the jeans dirty because of all this cleaning. We had almost finished when I heard the well-known sound of opening the door. “Hi there” – my mum shouted. “Are you at home?” She looked around and noticed the traces of water and the dust covering the carpet. She noticed the strange yellow spots on the ceiling and the burnt microwave oven. And we giggled. We simply couldn’t resist. “Didn’t I tell you to press the door of the washing machine when it is spinning?” – she said. “Didn’t I tell you not to microwave eggs? What do they teach you at school?” We giggled and giggled. “KFC?” she asked. “It’s still open. I’m going back. I only came to take the wedding present.” – she said. “And why did you put the curtains on the table?” – she asked and left.
We laughed and giggled so much that finally a neighbour did come. And we didn’t open. We ordered a big pizza and watched a video and it was perfect. The best weekend in my life. Even when we wanted to eat the ice-cream and I discovered that unplugging the microvawe I had unplugged the fridge and the ice-cream was warm and soft.