A Brush with Catastrophe.

Something rather amazing happened earlier tonight. Getting ready to go out and wish my brother from another mother well on his new adventure, I pulled out the necklace I bought at Global Village from the Pakistani shops.

Out with it flew the earrings that the vender quickly made for me while I haggled with him on the price of my main purchase. (I actually did get fairly good at haggling there toward the end days, believe it or not.) Anyway, one of the earrings made it past my grasp and slid right down the bathroom sink drain!

"Oh nooooooo...," I screamed, with all the urgency of a fatal snake bite.

Ben came running with the $50 flashlight that I have been giving the hairy eyeball to exactly up until this moment of need. Accompanied by an equally superfluous multi-tool (says the girl with 170 pairs of shoes...) and a paperclip perfectly bent with said tool.

When I shined the light into the drain I saw first my prize, and then next to it the accomplice that kept it suspended. It was, in fact, my lost toothbrush (nothing but net, eh?). And had it not been lodged there, my lovely souvenir would have found itself settled in the limbo between my world and the watery beyond.

Eventually I fished it out. And bowed with new-found respect to my husband's indispensable tools. Oh, and also realized the true purpose of my toothbrush's absence. It was a long wait, comrade. But well worth it.