Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Slip the Mind

We forgot about getting our fingerprints.

When Andrew points this out I curse and wonder how that managed to slip by. He puts on the dining table a stack of papers for LiveScan, with whom California requires persons to get fingerprints processed by. I’ve done it a couple of times, once for a notary license and again before I could start teaching. So it is that I start to think we actually need an appointment, and cannot, like Andrew said just walk in. In my list of phone calls to make the next day I scribble down a note to call the LiveScan office.

Sure enough, when I call the next day the gruff voice tells me that an appointment is needed. I jump up to the calendar hanging on the wall and grab the dry-erase pen. I ask for the first available appointment on the coming Saturday. The other end is silent, and when the man comes back he curtly tells me nine in the morning. Just as I say that nine works for us he cuts in and corrects himself to nine-thirty. I book the nine-thirty, thank him and hang-up. I write the time on the calendar and notice our third and final home study visit is approaching. Next week to be exact.

I tap the pen on my lower lip and eye the kitchen. It’s clean. But it’s old. A bit beyond the simple coat of paint. There’s only one counter, and it’s the sink base that is currently falling apart. I have a suspicion that the sink base is original to the house, which would put its age at century plus nine years. The lino is old and very ugly. We’ve been holding off on the kitchen for a while now, but I’m starting to regret that. I wish the fact my kitchen is ugly could slip my mind as easily as the fingerprints. Even as I tell myself the kitchen is fine, that I’m worrying about nothing I can’t help but wander back to my laptop and start looking at Craigslist for skilled labor services.

1 comment:

Elizabeth @ My Life, Such as it is... said...

Ugly kitches are ok. Mine is small and from the '70s with the original avacado green laminate counters (cut up), warped cabinets, avacado green oven, leaky faucet and butt ugly floor linoleum. As long as it is clean, that's all that matters. And a fire extinguisher in Tx is required. It passed our home study.