In Case of Emergency, Use Salt: A Satirical Short Story About First Dates

Beware the Dish Monster

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In Case of Emergency, Use Salt

(I)

Three days ago, when Danielle entered Julia’s apart­ment, she thought she was walk­ing into a prank. First, Julia had asked for help. Which had hap­pened less than three times in their ten-year friend­ship. Sec­ond, she asked for help because she had a date. Some­thing that hadn’t hap­pened in the fif­teen years they had worked togeth­er. The third, and most con­vinc­ing evi­dence of a prank, was that Julia had asked for help with clean­ing. 

If Danielle had passed this request around to their cowork­ers, they’d call her a liar. Julia exist­ed in a coex­is­tent state with messi­ness, and her name had become office short­hand for slop­py. So the idea of what Julia’s apart­ment would look like, let alone clean­ing it, brought images of haz­mat suits. But noth­ing could’ve pre­pared her for the real deal. 

Once there, Danielle couldn’t believe Julia lived in the haz­ard zone that spawned before her. The mar­ble coun­ter­tops looked more like spoiled wood than stone. And only a hand­ful of white pock­marks with­in the quilt of stains revealed its true mate­r­i­al. 

Every­thing with­in range of a cab­i­net held a sticky shim­mer, and loose flakes of crud flapped and flowed with the draft of air con­di­tion­ing. Then there was the sink. Five tow­ers of dirty dish­es piled to the ceil­ing, serv­ing as sky­scrap­ers of filth. Next to two of them rest­ed a steplad­der. 

Julia fol­lowed Danielle’s stare. “I’ve got a record going. I think I can break fifty-six.”

“Plates?”
“Uh-huh,” she grinned. “Neat, right?”

“No, not real­ly. Actu­al­ly, it’s the exact oppo­site.”

Julia’s grin deflat­ed. She fluffed up the pile of laun­dry slumped on her couch into a chair, and sat down.

“Yeah, it’s pret­ty bad.”

Danielle moved to join her, but stopped mid­way and raised her left shoe to find it drip­ping with a mys­tery liq­uid. 

“Yuck.”

“Shit, did you step in some­thing?” Julia asked. “I think I have paper tow­els. Wait, no, I don’t. Dammit.”

“It’s okay. I mean, I’m going to burn this shoe, but the green nev­er matched my eyes, any­way.”

Julia nod­ded, but Danielle knew from the pale face that a pan­ic was set­ting in. Julia hugged her knees and start­ed rock­ing back and forth.

“Julia?” Danielle asked.

Noth­ing.

“Hey, Jules, look at me, hon.”

Julia glanced over and her eyes caved in like tun­nels. It gave Danielle ver­ti­go, so she stared at Julia’s fore­head.

“Yes, Dan­ny?” Julia said. 

“It’s gonna be okay. I know some­one who can fix this.”

Julia laughed, but it came out like a masked cry.

“Oh, yeah?” She said. “I didn’t know you had a mag­ic lamp in your purse.” 

“It’s not quite like that. But, c’mon, if you’re gonna cry then at least do it some­where you can get some sun­shine and fresh air.” Danielle said and out­stretched her arms to grab at Julia through the air. “Let’s get a drink. I’ll tell you about this spe­cial fam­i­ly friend I have, give you their card, and then we can relax the rest of the night.”

“Relax?” Julia pout­ed. “This’ll take a week of hard labor to clean. I don’t have a week. I have until tomor­row night.”

“Jules, get it togeth­er and trust me.” She wait­ed. “Ok?” 

They held each other’s gaze until Julia left the couch.

“Ok, fine. But if it is a genie, then I’m using a wish on new sweat­pants.”