The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Green Bowl

I suggest the scientists hired to get to the bottom of the mysterious crop circle phenomenon in the US put a temporary pin in their investigation and head on over to my house – as there are hella strange occurrences happening in our household.

Spoons for one – strange and mysterious spoons – most of them encrusted in some sort of sticky substance (ectoplasm?) – end up in the weirdest of places – on the hall table, all over the kitchen counters, under beds, in between couch cushions, on top of toilet tanks. And no one – I mean no one in this house is responsible. Kinda weird, no?

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Just the other day, I was confounded by the mysterious case of the vanishing green bowl. You see, I have a neat little stack of plastic bowls that nestle together in my cupboard. The green one is my favourite as it’s sort of the baby bear of my bowl collection – not too big and not too small.

Well, I was setting out to throw together some muffin batter (banana chocolate chip) and you can imagine my gob-smacked surprise when I opened my cupboard to find the orange bowl, the blue bowl and the red bowl but nary a green. It had somehow mysteriously vanished without a trace.

Now of course I can make muffin batter in any other bowl – but as I was saying – the green one is the Holy Grail of bowls. And when it comes to scraping muffin batter from bowl to muffin tin, you just can’t beat the green. So here I was, muffins on the mind and potentially bowl-less.

My blood boiled and I took several deep and cleansing breaths to calm my heart rate. Then screamed at the top of my lungs: “Where the f*** is my G.D. green bowl?!”

Dead silence.

You know what they say about yelling out to a crowd for someone to call 9-1-1 – and then no one ends up doing it? That was like this. So I changed tack and instead called out each and every family member by name before asking: “Did you take the green bowl?”

Nope. Apparently no one had taken it. I had an honest-to-goodness mystery on my hands. And by God, I was going to get to the bottom of the curious incident of the vanishing green bowl if it was the last thing I ever did.

On a mission, I stormed into the family room. I found a sock in between the couch cushions, two empty cups (one apparently filled with ice cream once upon a time), a loonie on the floor (mine now), a used q-tip on the floor (also mine now). But no green bowl.

Onward and downward – this time to the basement. Missing pyjamas (of which I had already processed the loss of and had moved on from) draped atop a defunct air hockey game, two more empty cups, a half-finished can of Coke, a spoon, my good pair of scissors (not to be mistaken for my everyday pair of scissors). No green bowl.

Now in a serious huff, I stomped back up and into the foyer in order to bellow at the three ingrates upstairs: “Check your bedrooms! Right! Now!” The walls shook with my fury and three of my neighbours actually went upstairs to check their bedrooms just in case. Kids yelled back they didn’t have the bowl. One of them had the audacity to suggest that I should calm down because the bowl would turn up.

Never tell an irate woman to calm down. Also, never tell an investigative irate woman that the very thing she seeks will turn up. Unless you would like to be torn an additional a**hole.

I spun around to return to the kitchen – scooping up an errant spoon, water bottle, earring and desiccated lemon wedge from the hall table.

This mystery was clearly not going to solve itself. Someone or something was harbouring my green bowl and for whatever depraved reason – was unwilling to relinquish it to me. It was time for me to take out the big guns – my last defence before coming to terms with the harsh reality that I was going to have to make banana muffins in a lesser bowl.

I yelled back upstairs: “When I find that bowl – whoever last had it is going to be punished. Do you hear me? So I suggest one of you finds it before I do.”

Crickets.

I yanked open my pantry cupboard and pulled out flour, sugar, baking soda and salt – slamming them onto the counter with a fire only present in a person with a bowl-shaped hole in their heart. I yanked open the fridge and pulled out eggs, milk and butter – slam and slam. I yanked open the bowl cupboard – and pulled out the orange bowl. Forced to make muffins in the orange bowl – I couldn’t believe it had come to this!

I measured and poured and cracked and stirred – all with a heightened velocity thanks to my bowl-less rage. Now for the main ingredient – bananas. And not just any old bananas – bananas that I had had the foresight to freeze several months back as they quietly edged from ripe to over-ripe. Bananas that I had dug out of the freezer the night before to ensure they were thawed and ready to be mashed into a delectable muffin batter. Bananas I had placed out of reach from a perpetually ravenous counter-surfing mutt.

There those melty, black bananas peacefully sat – up high, barely even noticeable – IN MY BEAUTIFUL GREEN BOWL.

I finished making the batter (in the orange bowl), spooned it carefully into a prepared tin and slid it into my pre-heated oven. Then I washed and dried both bowls before returning them to where they rightfully belonged – back in the bowl cupboard nestled among their siblings.

Mystery solved. Please call me Sherlock.

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