While my husband was in the Marine Corps we were finally settled into base housing. They were nothing fancy and not very big, but they did have two bedrooms, a living room with a big door and windows that opened out onto a nice path through the houses, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. Now since we had K1 at the time we definitely needed a washer and dryer as I used cloth diapers then. The washer and dryer were mini units but still too big and they couldn’t go on top of each other so we had them placed as tightly together as we could so we had room to move around. A table didn’t fit. It was in the living room that we ate.

One night A was out somewhere and a neighbor came over with a paper bag of crabs and asked if I wanted them. I said yes, because I love crabs. 

Problem was that they were alive (supposed to be) and I was terrified of them. So I got the tongs and tried to pick one up and put it in the water. I dropped it on the floor. It chased me around the kitchen and I finally jumped on top of the dryer. 

There I sat watching him walking around my kitchen and I was barefoot so I stayed where I was. 

A came home and found me sitting on the dryer.

“What are you doing,” he asked me.

 I just pointed to the crab on the floor.

“Where’s K1?”

“She’s in her crib asleep.”

“And how long have you been sitting on the dryer?”

“Over an hour.”

The other crabs were making a lot of noise in the bag and so he picked up the one on the floor and dumped the rest into what was left of the boiling water. He had to reboil what was in there because I did turn off the stove before diving for the dryer.