A tiring day

Several months ago, Rebecca was making pasta at my house with my ancient pasta machine. She complained that it was sluggish, and filled with crud. Naturally, I felt that this could not possibly be, but a close inspection showed that it was in fact so. Hmmmmmm! What to do? I decided to take it apart and clean it. How hard could that be? Well, it wasn’t hard at all, but putting it back together was another matter. It had all seemed so logical and obvious when I took it apart, that I could not imagine that it would not be logical and obvious to put it together again. But there it was - a bunch of metal strips, and every piece had at least two possible ways it could go back in. Rebecca suggested that I bring its pieces to her house, and we could compare it with hers, and thus get it together correctly. It was not so simple. We could see how it was supposed to go, but it simply wouldn’t do it. We struggled for a bit, and then Rebecca said, “They have these at Cost Plus for thirty dollars.” Mine was, afterall, over thirty years old. So we admitted defeat, and trekked off to the waterfront Cost Plus store. I was so tired by time we got downtown, that I suggested we get one from a closer cooking store which we passed on our way. “No,” she said, “They are too expensive there.” Sigh. We forged on. I was ready to die. When we got to our destination, we looked around and found nary a pasta machine. I bought some nice table napkins to comfort myself. They have butterflies on them and are très cute. Then back to the downtown store where the pasta machines were indeed much more expensive. But available. Oh well! Now I have one to last me for the next thirty years. If I can summon the energy to make some pasta!