Lincoln’s Story…

 

“Why are you staring at the dishwasher?” Pete asked.

Lincoln turned to look at his best friend, contemplating his next move.  “It’s broken,” Lincoln replied.

Pete’s eyes instantly turned wary.  “Woah!  Don’t do it, Linc!” he urged, even taking a step back, his backpack slung over his shoulder.  “Remember what happened when the small fridge broke?”

Lincoln looked at the door leading to the garage where the small fridge was plugged into a special outlet.  “I eventually got that fixed though.  It’s working even better now.”

Pete laughed.  “No kidding?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t very hard.  I just had to…”

Pete waved his hand in the air, not wanting an explanation.  “It doesn’t matter if it was hard or not.  Your mom flipped out when she came home from work to find the entire refrigerator taken apart and spread out over her kitchen floor.”

Lincoln grinned at the memory.  “Yeah, she was pretty furious about that.  But in the end, she just…,” he chuckled, shaking his head.  “Well, she had to step over the parts for a few days, but since I put everything back together, she wasn’t too upset.”  He chuckled again.  “In the end, at least.”

The light in Lincoln’s eyes sparkled with excitement at the challenge.  Dumping his book bag down onto the floor, he walked over to the machine and pulled it up.  Because it was still broken, he and his mother had been hand washing the dishes for the past few days. 

“I know my mom doesn’t have the extra money to have someone come out and fix the dishwasher until the end of the month,” he said to his friend.  “So why not?  I know I can eventually figure this out.’  He looked to Pete.  “Wanna try and do this with me?’

Pete laughed, shaking his head.  “Do you think you can do it before your mother comes home from work in a few hours?”

Lincoln glanced back at the dishwasher, then shrugged with typical teenage confidence.  “Sure.  Why not?”

Pete chuckled.  “Why not?  What could go wrong?” he replied, then tossed his book bag down on the floor as well.  “Okay, tell me what to do.”

For the next two hours, Lincoln and Pete carefully disassembled the dishwasher.  Finally, he found the problem.  “I don’t think that this is supposed to be burned out like this,” Lincoln said as he held up several wires that looked to have been rubbed raw.  Because the electricity hadn’t been insulated with the plastic coating, there was a black singe to the area.  With renewed determination, Lincoln nodded with confidence.  “Yeah, I know what to do now.”

Pete glanced over his shoulder at the clock.  “Yeah, but can you fix it in an hour?  Your mom is due home from work by then and…” he looked around, seeing all of the pieces scattered about in a pattern that only Lincoln understood.  “If she sees all of these parts around like this, you know she’s going to scream.”

Lincoln laughed, but also nodded his head.  “Yeah, you’re right.  But I think I can do it.”  He leaned back slightly, twirling the wire in his fingers.  “In fact…” he picked up the wrench and… “I think I can make this even better.”

Pete looked at the parts warily, taking a deep breath.  But for the next hour, he handed Lincoln each of the parts and tools that he asked for. 

They worked quickly, but Lincoln wasn’t fast enough.  So when he heard, “What in the world...!” behind him, Lincoln knew that traffic had been good tonight.  And his mother was home earlier than expected.

He turned and held up his hands.  “Don’t panic,” he assured her.  “I’ve got this under control.”

Lincoln’s mother looked at the remaining pieces of her dishwasher that were still sitting on the wood floor of the kitchen, her mouth hanging open in horror.  “What did you do?” she whispered. 

Lincoln took her calmer tone as a good sign.  “I think I’ve not only fixed the dishwasher,” he said and picked up the screw driver, “I might have made it even better.”  He reached into the cavernous interior and started screwing what he suspected was the water spraying unit, back into place.  Ten minutes later, he looked around.  All of the pieces were back in the dishwasher. 

“You did it!” Pete said, applauding. 

Lincoln stood up and glanced over at his mother.  She was leaning against the counter, nibbling on an apple. “Do you want to try it?”

His mom sighed, then pushed away from the counter, walking over to the dishwasher.  “What’s the worst that could happen?  It’s still broken, right?” she asked.

Lincoln nodded his head.  “Exactly!  And since I tweaked the water pressure, it should make the dishes come out cleaner.”

His mother cringed, but she pressed the buttons that would start the dishwasher, then they all took a step back. 

It started!  “Wow!” Lincoln exclaimed, clapping Pete on the back.  “We did it!”

Pete laughed, shaking his head.  “After the fridge, I had my doubts.  But yeah, you…”

The explosion brought all of their eyes back to the dishwasher.  And it wasn’t an explosion, exactly.  It was more of a…blow out.  The front door of the dishwasher was now skidding across the floor of the kitchen. Apparently, the door of the dishwasher couldn’t withstand the additional water pressure. 

“Well, that was unexpected,” Lincoln commented, his hands crossing over his chest as his eyes moved back and forth from the cavernous dishwasher to the door of the appliance.

“Right!” Pete whispered.  He then grabbed his book bag and headed for the door.  “Well, I’ll just…” he started to say something, but he saw the stunned expression on Lincoln’s mother’s features and decided to just…get out. 

 

Kinsley…

 

“How’s it look?” Kinsley’s mother called out from the front porch of the wooden cabin. 

Kinsley stared out at the lake and the trees that surrounded the water’s edge and smothered a sigh.  “It’s good, Momma!” she called back. Not because the view was good or bad.  But because it was the same.  They’d vacationed here, in this exact cabin, last year.  And the year before. And the year before that as well.  In fact, her family had been coming to this house in the woods for the past five years.  Almost half of her life! 

Kinsley reached her toe down, pushing off of the rocky soil to make the hammock swish.  Leaning her head back, she stared up at the sky, zipping her sweater up to her chin.  “Why can’t we go to Florida?” she whispered to the clouds.  “Or even better, Aruba!” she asked, her voice tinged with reverence for the far off island where sunshine was warm and the water filled with exotic fish. 

“Honey, do you want to start the fire for s’mores tonight?” her dad asked.

Kinsley didn’t really like s’mores.  They were fine, but she preferred just eating the roasted marshmallows alone.  Smooshing the hot marshmallow between the graham crackers and chocolate was just…messy.  Kinsley wasn’t a huge fan of anything that was messy. 

Her parents loved s’mores though.  That was another thing that they did.  S’mores on the first night of their vacation.  Kinsley would bet that her mother was pulling out the macaroni and cheese casserole.  The one with the diced chicken in it, because her mother hated cooking on vacation, so she made several casseroles in advance and froze them for the trip. 

Not that they’d have casseroles every night of this week’s vacation!  Oh no!  Her father would be dragged into the cooking schedule.  Around mid-week, he’d grumble about eating too much rice or pasta and he’d say it was time to make burgers.  As if burgers was different somehow?  Her mother went a bit crazy last year and brought tater tots instead of fries to go with the burgers.  Her father had laughed at the outrageousness of such a heinous act of craziness.  Tater tots!  How radical!

“Kinsley?  Can you put the cushions out onto the law chairs?  I’m making a salad for the casserole tonight.  We’re having your favorite!”

Kinsley sat up, smothering her sigh as she looked towards the door.  Her mother held up the casserole dish with a smile. “Mac and cheese?” she called out.

Her mother nodded, winking as if the appearance of the decadent pasta dish would be a surprise.

Kinsley walked over to the shed where the owner of the house stored all of the lawn chair cushions.  She dragged three sets out and slapped them onto the iron chairs.  The same iron chairs that had been here for years and were now looking pretty ragged. 

Her mother came out several minutes later, two glasses of wine in her hands.  “Goodness, it’s wonderful to be back here, isn’t it?” she breathed as she handed one of the glasses to her husband as they both sat down on one of the chairs. 

“Sure is,” her father replied, then clinked his glass against hers.  “Nice to be back.”

Kinsley refrained from rolling her eyes.  They were two hours from their house.  Just two hours!  “Have you guys ever thought about vacationing somewhere else?” she asked. 

Both of her parents looked at her with surprise, eyes wide.  “Where would we go that is as beautiful as this?” her mother asked, waving her free hand to the tall, evergreen trees that surrounded their small cabin. 

“I don’t know.  Like the beach?  Or the mountains?”

“We can hike that trail you love tomorrow,” her father replied, as if hiking the same trail that they always hiked every year would compensate for the lack of a varied vacation plan. 

“But, don’t either of you want to try out a different place every once in a while?”

Her mother shook her head.  “No way!  I love coming here and doing the same thing every year.  I love being able to anticipate this quiet week here in the woods.”

“Relaxing,” her father said, reaching out to lace his fingers through his wife’s.  “This is the life,” he replied with a smile.

Kinsley kept her groan of frustration to herself.  But she vowed that one day, she’d travel to some place other than this cabin.  She’d go to a place outside of the state of Washington and explore…everything!!