Five Mysteries and Surprises in Everyday Domestic Routines

All illustrations by the author.

Everyday many people go to work with jobs that require a great deal of skill, patience and concentration. Others will need the ability to deal with awkward customers or to solve unexpected problems. Perhaps to have to try and figure out why an engine or a piece of equipment has stopped working; how to overcome the problem and how to fix it. Or even deal with a patient without patience.

But whatever the calling in life, at the end of the day we can put all this aside. We know that we can return to the domestic haven we call home.

Here we know there shouldn’t be any sudden surprises. Nobody will be wanting answers as to why the bus, train or aircraft was late. There are no unruly pupils “kicking off”, or customers wanting to know why there isn’t a price label on the tin of baked beans. The boss won’t suddenly be demanding more production or bringing a target date forward, to the day before yesterday.

At home there are our comfortable routines that we constantly stick to, often, almost as if on auto pilot.

We open a door and walk into a room. We sit down. We stand up. We go up or down the stairs (unless you live in a bungalow: okay, for the pedantic – a bungalow that hasn’t got a cellar!) We eat a meal. Get undressed and take a shower or a bath. Go to bed. Get up in the morning. Go to the bathroom. Clean our teeth. Get dressed.

There may be routines around the home that seem more like chores. We may not enjoy doing such things as washing, drying and ironing the laundry; dusting the shelves and furniture, vacuuming or washing up. But like them or loathe them, they don’t take too much thinking about. There is nothing new or different and we perform these actions without giving them a thought. In fact, the one thing that all these things have in common is that, they take up no head space. The mind can wander off to think about other things whilst doing them.

But sometimes something pops up that is either one of life’s unsolvable mysteries, or simply makes you go “What the…”

The hidey-seeky teaspoon

I’ll have been at home for a couple of hours and we’ll have had our evening meal.

I’m unwinding and starting to feel relaxed. Mrs is settling to watch the TV soap that she enjoys and I don’t, so I decide, as I sometimes do, that instead of putting the pots and plates in the dishwasher, I’ll wash them myself.

So I go through the whole routine of putting the plates in the hot soapy water and washing them, rinsing them under the tap and placing them on the drainer.

By this time my thoughts are off with the fairies, perhaps thinking of what to spend the money on when we win our millions on the lottery, or what I’d really like to say to that irritating bloke at work.

Then it happens: the great washing-up mystery. I feel around the bowl, in the soapy water, to make sure I’ve done everything and there is nothing left in there. There isn’t. The bowl is empty. It is bereft of crockery and cutlery. It is 100% clear; without any doubt; definitely!

Well if it’s empty, then when I tip the soapy water away down the sink, where the heck does that teaspoon come from that clatters into the sink, every flaming time?

It has me completely foxed.

However, over the years, I have developed a theory. It is not just any teaspoon, but one specific teaspoon that does it every time, and it does it on purpose just to annoy me. It is the only possible theory.

How it got into our cutlery draw only the spoon will ever know; but I am now convinced that it started life in Hereford, in the canteen of the Headquarters of the SAS Commandos. I believe it overheard all the teachings on camouflage and evading capture, etc.

I believe our teaspoon is an “SAS (Underwater Concealment Expert) Commando Teaspoon”.

It’s the only explanation. Isn’t it?

The missing step

I know how many steps there are on my staircase. There are 13.

I have been up and down them many times. Over the years I have got to know them all intimately, with shoe, slipper, sandal, sock and bare foot. I know the squeaky step and I even know the naughty step. That is the bottom one.

That is the one that, every once in a blue moon, will disappear.

Let me explain.

Going upstairs is very easy. As I am fully functional the process is quite simple: put one foot on the first step followed by the other foot on the second step and repeat the process until you reach the top. Going downstairs is exactly the same but in the opposite direction. With practise you learn to even be able to vary the speed at which you can do this.

However when there is a heavy and bulky object to carry downstairs, as soon as that step knows that I’m approaching the top step it will run off and hide. Unseeing, I start to lumber downstairs, carefully and slowly, plodding one step at a time. When I think that I’m on the last step I put my foot down to place it on the floor, and the fact that I’m got my left foot on the floor already and the right one won’t go any lower, sends a jolt right through to the pit of my stomach as it hits and I almost tumble. I’m sure that my right foot is as surprised as I am to see that the left foot got there before it.

Of course by the time I turn around to stare at the stairs incredulously, the staircase is back to 13 steps again.

It can vary its act and has, on a rare occasion, caught me out as I try to struggle up the stairs carrying a similar object. Its timing is immaculate. It must disappear just as I reach out to step on it so that I, in fact, start my climb on the second step and am most surprised to stumble across the landing one step sooner than I thought.

The lonely sock

The laundry basket is full so it’s time to do a wash. I pull a towel from the basket and put it on the floor. I take the clothes out and drop them onto the towel. I check to see that the basket is empty and it is. I gather the four corners of the towel together as I pick the washing up, so I don’t leave a trail of socks and underwear down the stairs. A quick look round to make sure I’ve not dropped anything then it’s off to the washing machine. Load up the machine and again a quick look to make sure that I’ve not dropped anything, and turn it on.

An hour or so later when I’m just about to call the fire brigade because it sounds like the fire-alarm is going off, I realise that it is the washing machine beeping to tell me it’s finished the wash.

(I know this is off at a tangent from the main thread, but why do manufacturers have to incorporate such irritating “beeps” and “pings” into kitchen goods to let us know they have finished performing their task? I’m not an idiot. If the light in the microwave has gone out .then it’s done. If the washing machine is not going “whum whum whum” any more, then it too has finished. If there is smoke coming out of the toaster then I know it is ready. As for the bread maker: that sounds like it’s going to start playing the intro to “The Bridal March”!)

To continue: depending on the time of year the clothes are either hung out on the washing line or put in the clothes drier.

The final part of the routine is to, gather them in, fold them up, make piles of underwear according to who they belong to, and pair up the socks.

Now we’ve reached the whole point of this particular rant. There are five people in this house; all of us have an even number of legs: two each. None of us have an odd number of legs. There is nobody with one leg and there is nobody with three legs.

So why is there ALWAYS an odd sock? It doesn’t matter which one of us does the washing, there is always an odd sock!

There is a slim possibility on that the next washing day its mate may turn up, but experience and a half full carrier bag of lonely socks tell me different.

The scream from the bathroom

I’m feet up, dozily sat watching the TV when I’m jump-started out of my seat (and my wits) by my name being screamed from the bathroom.
This, to me, can only mean that one of three things has happened.

1. She has had a large vent of gas and blown the toilet apart, and I’ll find her sat amongst the wet rubble on the bathroom floor, in tears.

2. Attila the Hun has broken through the time barrier and burst out of the shower door and I’ll find her sat on the loo, drawers around her ankles, with his menacing features standing over her trembling figure, with sword raised high in the air, ready to strike.

3. She has spotted a small house spider.

Have a guess.

On or off?

(This is an image of a lightbulb. It is not a large naked lady, stood in a bucket, bending over having a wash!)

Come on own up. At some age or point in your life you’ve done it. Everybody has. If you tell me you haven’t, then I’ll have to treat 80% of what you say as untrue and 20% of what you say as questionable.

It’s like the philosophers question: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

In this case it’s “Does the light in the fridge always go off when the door is closed?”

Like you, I’ve tried to catch the little beggar out. I have crept up to the fridge, placed my eye into the seal between the door and the fridge and gently prized it open. It’s on.

I have nonchalantly turned my back on the fridge, surreptitiously placing a hand on the door, and then quickly flung it open. The light is still on!

My own opinion is that it is a light bulb with an attitude, which will never reveal its secret as to whether it’s on or off when the door is closed.

However I have been told that a local schoolteacher proffered to her pupils that it was an invisible character called “Chilly Billy” that turns the light on and off.

I will be writing to the Local Education Authority to argue the point and to try and get her removed from teaching as my explanation is logical and for her “care in the community” is not working.

Also this author:

10 Offbeat, Bizarre and Wacky Facts

Saucy Seaside Postcards

Amazing Discovery: Answers to the Secrets of Life Uncovered in Postcards

High Jinks on the High Seas

More High Jinks on the High Seas

Danger Alert: Christmas is Coming, Be Prepared

Four Classic Quotes to Memorize for Halloween or How to Get Thrown Out of the Neighbourhood

Other Mysteries by this author:

The Mystery of the Screaming Man

The Mystery of Bedlam Revealed