Day 523 The dogs did it.

12th January 2019

If things could get any worse, they did this morning. All I had to do was re-align the drawer fronts on the issue prone table. I removed the zinc handles, removed the front panel from the drawer and reposition it so that it fitted in the recess perfectly. I then had to re-drill the through holes for handle. As I pushed the lugs of the handle into the holes and engaged the attachment screw, I began to tighten, suddenly the screw went loose, so I unscrewed it. The handle came away from panel and I could see that the lugs had snapped off.

That feeling of dread came over me, and believe me, thirty years at Herman Miller I knew that feeling well. Kelli was drying her hair at the time, so I crept up to the door ready to tell her what happened. The dogs were nowhere to be seen, so I couldn’t blame them, therefore I had to blurt it out. There was the sigh of exasperation, and the look that said “What are you going to do now?”

The look I returned was like “I don’t know” in a slightly pitiful tone.

The clock was ticking, we had to get the tables to Hudsonville to replace other tables that had sold.

I went through various scenarios in my head. I had to fix a handle to a drawer that had no fixings. The only solution was to drill holes in the handle from the front, and countersink them.

I pushed screws though the handle, and fixed it to the front with a nut. I then handed it to my brilliant wife who matched the colour of the handle perfectly. She was at pains to tell me that she had already mixed the colour to match the handle even before I gave it to her, which was an amazing co-incidence, or she had more mystical power than I gave her credit for. Anyway, disaster was averted, and we were able to deliver the pieces to the booth.

In the evening Cameron took us to a Speakeasy deep beneath Butch’s restaurant.

Entrance is gained using a special password. The first time we tried there was an hour wait, so we walked in the biting wind to a bar on the high street. No sooner had we sat down Cam got a text to say there was a table for us. So the drinks had to be swiftly dispatched. That was the point that Kelli started to giggle. We were escorted down stairs to the bowels of the building, then through a door into another experience. There was a bar where the tenders were shaking the cocktail makers. The lighting was low and atmospheric, the candle on the table barely let out any light, it must have had the expected usage of at least two years. I had to read out the menu purely using the reflected light from Kelli’s teeth. The waiter slid across to take our order. Cameron, who was a regular, took a whiskey, Kelli wanted something with chocolate in it. Off he went, bringing back something resembling watery mud, although it tasted better than any mud I’ve ever drunk before . I ordered some flavoured nuts, because the light was so dim, I had no idea what they really were. Some were clustered together, and I’m sure that if I saw them in daylight it would have scared the shit out of me.

As the effects of the watery mud continued to hit Kelli, the giggling grew in frequency and intensity. I had chosen Craft cider, the safest, less exotic of the drink selection, but it tasted like a sample you would give to a doctor, but it did improved the more I consumed.