Quintessential you

I have a pretty high IQ. I’m not a genius or anything but I’m bright. However, unless I’m doing higher math or something it really doesn’t show – in fact, quite the opposite, because I'm a total klutz.

We’ve been back in Germany since mid September and in that time we’ve had to change the vacuum bag twice because it was full of broken glass. At least twice a week I drop one of our spices and it shatters on the floor and I have to vacuum up fiddly little bits of glass and powders while yelling at my kids to stay out of the kitchen. About every other week a glass of spaghetti sauce meets its destiny in my kitchen and you’d be surprised how far that stuff can travel on impact. We have dark red flecks all over kitchen ceiling and Ralf has threatened to paint the entire kitchen brown if I don’t mend my ways. If you come to dinner at our house, expect to eat well but don’t come into the kitchen while I’m cooking because the tornado of spilled wine, tomato stains, broken glass and piles of glass and parsley on the floor might put you off. On one memorable occasion I cut my finger while making a salad, spraying the walls and kitchen window with blood just as a friend who was over for dinner popped her head in and offered to help.

I couldn’t help noticing that she didn’t eat any salad.

Last night I went rummaging in the medicine cabinet for something to put my lingering cough to rest, at least for the night, and emerged triumphantly with an almost full bottle of Sinupret, which is a German mucus dissolver (my best translation for ‘Schleimloeser’). I was holding it tightly by the lid, which inexplicably separated from the rest of the bottle. Needless to say, the bottle with its entire contents plunged to the tile floor. It erupted spectacularly, depositing its sticky load all over the floor, the walls, the mirror, the husband and my pants. A few gluey drops even found their way into my hair.

Ralf’s comment as he grimly helped me wipe up the worst of it? ‘This is quintessential you!’