Love and Muffins

Disclaimer: I hesitated to write this entry, but the whole experience made me laugh so hard that I just couldn't keep it to myself. Before you read on, you have to promise that you won't get excited over the possibility of a little romance in my life. I promise you, there's virtually zero chance of anything coming out of this.... 

It's been five years since my divorce, and many of the people I love--including Allyson--often ask me if there's any possibility that I will marry again, or at least go on a date. I always say that I don't know. At this point, if God brings a godly man into my life, I'm not opposed. In the meantime, I've had a few crushes, which are always great fun.


My longest-standing crush has been on my plumber, who has come out probably ten times in the last three years to deal with my 20-year-old pipes. We usually talk while he works, and then talk another 15 or 20 minutes after that. I like Mike because:

• He's a talker, like me. He always remembers what we talked about the last time (months before) and asks me about it.
• He doesn't watch TV and didn't even have a smart phone until about a year ago.
• He's an obsessively healthy eater. He shares my appreciation for kitchen gadgets, such as the amazing Berkey water filter.
• He's as physically active as I would be if I had time.
• He's frugal and completely unmaterialistic.
• He loves cats even more than I do and gives lots of good cat advice.
• Most importantly, he's a Christian with an inspiring testimony.

In short, he's a masculine version of me, except with a lot more tattoos. Oh, and he's cute. But he's nine years younger than me, so I don't know if he'd be interested. Also, at one point he had a girlfriend. It doesn't sound like he does now, but I'm not sure.

After I saw Mike in December, I confessed to my sister Emily that I'd been sorely tempted to ask him if he'd ever like to go for coffee.

She shook her head. "No, try a more subtle approach," she advised.

"Subtle? Like how?"

"Well, say you know he's going to be coming. You could make some cookies or something, and offer him one."

"A cookie? You think?"

"You could eat cookies and talk."

"I could make healthy cookies. He likes healthy food," I said.

"Sure."

Cookie Time
At the beginning of this week, I sent Mike a text asking if he could come out one day to scope the pipes and give me an estimate on fixing the latest problem. He said he'd let me know when he could come out.

When he phoned at 8:40 this past Wednesday morning, I was actually still asleep (!). [Don't judge me; I'm on Spring Break.] I did my best to sound wide awake and said that under an hour was just perfect.

Then I ran to the bathroom to brush my teeth, run a flat iron over my bedhead hair, and put in my contacts. I applied a little mascara but decided to skip the lipstick because that would be too obvious.

Next, I straightened the kitchen and picked up a bit of clutter in the living room. A quick glance in the hall bathroom revealed a nasty toilet. Ever since Mike installed my free low-flow toilets, a "gift" from the city, they're only ever clean right after you brush them. Just as my neighbor Neil warned me, "you have to clean them every time you take a [crap]." Only we don't. So they are always gross. In all of his ten visits, Mike had never used my restroom, so I decided to risk leaving the toilet dirty so I could have time to eat breakfast.

Guess what was the first thing that Mike said to me ten minutes later? Well, first he said, "Hello, are you enjoying your Spring Break?" And then he said, "I'm sorry to ask, but can I use your restroom? I drank a lot of water this morning."

Cheeks burning, I said he could use it if he tried not to look at how dirty it was.

"Trust me, I've seen far worse," he called over his shoulder.

"Probably not," I muttered.

When he came back out, I apologized for the dirty toilet and told him I'd planned to get the whole house clean on my break, but mainly I'd just been wrecking and re-cleaning the kitchen every day due to cooking bulk meals for the freezer. [Some really incredible vegan meals. Yum!]

While I ate my cereal, we talked for a few minutes in my kitchen, and then he went outside to look at the pipes. After a few moments of hesitation, I followed him out like I usually do.

He quickly found a broken fitting at a T-joint, which a big ball of roots had penetrated.The next part was really interesting. He used something that looked like a metal detector to locate the bad section of pipe. It made lots of electronic beeping sounds, rather like R2-D2 in Star Wars. He said that the locator can detect where he's left the camera, with pinpoint accuracy.

Thankfully, the bad section is only a foot below ground, so the bill should be between $300 and $500, much less than I feared.

"That will take care of your problems," he concluded, giving me a crooked grin. "And then you'll never have to see me again."

I pressed my lips together to keep from saying, "I'd be sad if I never saw you again." Instead, I just smiled and dabbed at some allergy tears in the corners of my eyes.

"Are you crying?" he asked. "Or are those tears of joy?"

"Joy," I said. "That's a lot less than I was expecting to pay."

We agreed that he would come back out to do the work whenever it's convenient for him, most likely while I'm at work. Finally, I paid him and headed back into my kitchen.

He'd already climbed into his van when I remembered Emily's advice. I hadn't had time to make cookies before his arrival, but there on the counter top was a Pyrex bowl full of beautiful lemon muffins that Allyson had baked at 10:00 the night before. I bit my lip. "Don't be weird," I told myself. But then I shrugged and laughed. Why not?

I grabbed a muffin and ran out to the street. Eyebrows raised, Mike rolled down his window.

A little breathless, I said, "Want a lemon muffin? My daughter made them last night."

"Sure," he answered, holding out a hand.

"They're only a little... well actually, they're not at all healthy like the ones I make. But they taste great."

"Thanks!" he said. And then he was gone.

And I laughed myself silly. Surprisingly, I wasn't even embarrassed, just more amused than I've felt in I don't know how long. What really got me to laughing was that I had shared Allyson's muffin instead of one of the apple muffins that I had baked on the previous night.

Look at the crown on this one, and the dusting of sugar. 

Can you imagine what he would have thought if I'd offered him one of these? I have no idea what went wrong, but these muffins were all gooey in the middle.

Mine have craters instead of crowns. :(

Do you think there's hope for me? Can I ever win a man's heart with pathetic muffins like these?