The Yellow Knife

I have toast for breakfast every day, (thanks mom).  

If you know me at all, you know that I am a space cadet.  I do things like lock my keys in my car, leave the groceries at the checkout, and I have even forgotten to turn in a finished paper during class, many times.  

Our toaster in the office burns your toast unless you stand over it and watch it.  The timer doesn't work, so unless you're right there waiting, you're going to get black toast.  And guess what? I ALWAYS forget to wait.  So for the first few weeks of school, it became well known that Erin is a burner of toast and must be watched.  Which is nice because now I never burn my toast, someone always says, "Erin, toast!"  And I run across the room.  

My point is that everyone, including the Thai teachers, knows that I eat toast every morning.  

I use a knife to spread the peanut butter on the toast.  I wash the knife and put it away.  This is what happens every day.

But every day I would come into the office in the morning and there would be one, or two, or even three dirty knives on my desk.  At first I thought, "huh, that's weird, I thought I washed that."  But, knowing that I am forgetful, I would just wash the knife/knives and go on with my business.  

Pretty soon though, I realized that no, I definitely didn't use three knives yesterday, this is weird.  So, being my paranoid self, I came up with the theory that the Thai teachers would find the dirty knives in the clean pile, and assume that I was the one who hadn't washed them properly because I am the one who is known for eating toast, (lots of other people eat toast in the office, but I'm the only toast celebrity).  

So I would run to the sink and scrub the knives with extra soap, always cursing to the mysterious person who really wasn't washing the knives properly.  I went around thinking that the Thai teachers all thought that I was a slob who can't wash her own dishes properly.  I never said anything to my colleagues though, because there was this little doubt in my mind, "I am forgetful after all.  Maybe I did leave those on my desk..."

So this morning, I decided I was going to get to the bottom of this.  I used the sole yellow knife to peanut butter my toast, and then washed it, repeating to myself "I'm washing the yellow knife, I'm washing the yellow knife..." so that I would remember for sure.

At three forty-five, I started cleaning off my desk in preparation to leave, and I looked down.  There, lying on my desk, was a dirty yellow knife!!!  NO!

I started yelling about the creepy knife and Amy, who sits next to me, burst into hysterics.  Apparently, she has been putting dirty dishes on my desk for the last two months, and I have never noticed.  All this time I've been thinking that all the Thai teachers hate me and have this whole knife conspiracy thing going on, and really it was just Amy, who didn't feel like washing her dishes and knew I was too spacey to notice.  

I thought back to all the times I found dishes on my desk and thought, "huh, what did I eat?"  

Bwahahahahahahaha!  We all had a good laugh.  And then I began plotting my revenge...