Voyage to the Back of the Cupboard

My morning intake of Rice Krispies was derailed today by an unexpected Voyage to the Back of the Cupboard. There I was, fishing out a cereal bowl (a decent deep one mind, not one of your rubbish shallow plates that they try to pass off as bowls) when I casually tossed a box of tin foil to the back of the cupboard - I admit it, I’m a casual tosser - only to watch it tumble over the back board of said cupboard and disappear down into some hitherto undiscovered country betwixt wood and wall.

Who on earth in their right mind designs kitchen cupboard units with back panels that only reach two-thirds of the way up? I assume the designers must have decided that what their customers really need of a morning is half an hour on their knees retrieving their lost comestibles (I honestly have no idea what a comestible is; something that may comest, I suppose) from the dusty terra incognita of the kitchen netherlands.

There followed an enriching thirty minutes pulling off overlapping skirting panels in a precise order that only spatial prodigies the likes of Patrick Bossert (look him up) could master, to then be confronted with the terrifying murky world beneath the cupboards, a land that has not seen (artificial) light for nigh on these fifteen years. And there, resting in the pillowy dust dunes right at the back, lay the box of tin foil

I retrieved the foil and no inconsiderable amount of filth along with it. I also found the following random treasure items:

• A nail
• A dead fly
• A token from a Yorkshire Tea packet (expired)
• Lumps of concrete that I worry should be holding the floor of the flat together
• A 3-pin plug (disconnected)
• A quarter-full bottle of Tesco balsamic vinegar of Modena (expiry Sept 2011)
• Various mysterious machine parts, either from the oven, a formula one engine or the chameleon circuit of a Type 40 TT unit.

Not exactly attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, but we make our own adventures where we can.