I think the first ominous signs were on our way back from Memorial Day visit to Connecticut…
I'll have to pause this post here and change computers. This one's monitor is flickering and fading to black. Why? It's breaking!
Let me further interrupt this post to say that I went and got a new computer, wrote a great deal, then it all went weird with different fonts and line spacing for no reason, and then… disappeared. That's right. A blog post about breaking things actually "broke" during the writing process.
W…. T…. F…..?
So, where was I? Well, on the way home from CT, the car started doing some odd things. Ben's foot kept getting rained on when he turned right, and my support socks were getting pretty damp on my side too. Then the DVD player went haywire, and the airbag light came on. In short, the air conditioning was not venting water properly, so that gallons of condensation were building up and sloshing around right inside the dashboard. When I say "gallons" I'm exaggerating. It was literally only a gallon and a half.
Fast forward a couple weeks and we're paying a $3,000 car repair bill.
At about the same time, we hired a guy to repair the pergola, sort of our front porch type thing, which had been partially squished by a falling tree a while back. And, in an unrelated matter, another large chunk of tree fell towards the play structure, not damaging it, but making a big woody, leafy mess.
Meanwhile, the central air in the house went ker-flooey. It was boiling hot and I called to have it repaired. The first guy (there have been now three of them), who was crotchety and semi-toothless, and later proved to be incompetent, although was surely a well-meaning person, said that it had been hit by lightning. That was the only explanation, he said, because the whole thing was totally fried, through every element of the system. That sort of rang true, because we did have a major storm not long ago and remembered all being awakened by an extremely loud crack at 3 a.m. that set the kids both crying. The only answer, then, was to replace it. The estimate came in at about $3,500.
I called insurance to see if lightning strikes are covered, and their answer was a real hoot: in theory, yes, they are covered, but in practice… not so much. You see, when our pergola was crushed we filed a claim for that and got a whopping $600 in compensation. Now, if we were to file a claim for the lightning striking the AC, they would frown on it and raise our deductible to high heights, and "consider opting for non-renewal." Then, if for some reason our house burned down, or we were robbed, or whatever, in the ensuing couple years, it would be our third strike, they would kick us off their plan, no one else would take us, we would be uninsurable and completely f**ked.
Apparently they don't want to insure people like us, who are plainly bad luck. They only want to insure people who are good luck. Like we used to be, while we were paying premiums for 14 years and never filed anything whatsoever.
Anyway, Ben comforted himself that the AC unit was incredibly old, nearly 30 years, and nearly dead, and that the lightning strike was just happenstance. We decided to replace it, but I thought it was worth getting a couple other opinions on the matter, and other bids, seeing as this was a major purchase. Enter Scott, the stunning young man from Broadview Heating and Cooling. He came along, with his twinkling blue eyes, touches of ink, and mega-watt smile, to see what he could do about the situation. His first step was to nearly get killed by a huge, visible arc of current that only narrowly missed his hand. Seems the previous guy left some high voltage wires hanging out in the open, where the kids could easily have grabbed them. (I'll show him lightning!) After not getting killed right before my eyes, Scott performed another miracle: he fixed it! It was not struck by lightning, he said, just incredibly old and nearly dead. But revived for the moment, so huzzah!
Until it died again shortly. I called them back and begged for Scott to return so I could see him again– I mean, so he could fix it. However instead they sent Kevin, who, get this, was as handsome and amazing as Scott! Shaved head, a little ink, incredibly charming and off-puttingly attractive. I tell you, this is why it's dangerous to leave housewives alone all the time! Usually repair men are visually unsettling and plumber butt got its name for a reason. But these AC guys should be in movies, I'm tell you. Anyway, Kevin fixed it again and again said it was nearly dead. Their sales person called and made the case that we should replace both the ancient AC and ancient furnace at the same time, get the tax credit, get high efficiency everything, and just be done with it. Cost: $10,000.
That was yesterday. Meanwhile, the garbage disposal has been on the fritz, causing all sorts of drainage issues in the kitchen. I called around and found that it's still covered by warranty, but that the special approved fixers can't come until next Friday. The lady said to take a broom and try to unjam it by turning it counter clockwise. I did this and got both the blades in it moving, reset the reset button and turned the breaker on and off several times. It did nothing. The tricky part was that I didn't tell Ben I'd tried all this.
So last night about 11:00 p.m., we were having a bad moment. Elias's sleep was all messed up, because he had succumbed on the way home from a long, fun day, at about 6 p.m., had no dinner, and then woke up at 10 p.m. hungry and ready to party. We were trying to get some food into him, and Ben had dropped a hot bowl of mac and cheese all over the floor. After cleaning that up and making Elias a hot dog, a rather cross Ben began to do the broom stick thing. This is where I came in. We were sort of having a spat about what was going on with Elias, and Ben was jamming the broom stick in there, when the whole thing just fell down. The garbage disposal came loose and fell into the bottom of the cabinet and water began to spread everywhere. Then the dishwasher, which was running, began to drain and it turned into something of a flood. Ben got a mop, I ran down and turned off the breaker again, the kids were running around trying to get in on the fun. And all the while, Ben and I were both feeling the same thing: NEED. SLEEP.
This morning, I woke to find the kitchen looking like a hurricane had been through. The cabinets flung open and stuff all over the place, the sink covered in tape, the dishwasher cold and full of dirty water and dishes. While taking stock of this, I got Isaac a glass of water. He dropped it. The glass shattered in all directions. We were both barefoot. I stayed in one place and sent him away from the glass to get me some shoes. He came back with Wellies. Which brought me to the moment this morning in which I was squatting in my pajamas and Wellies, picking up wet glass shards in the midst of a destroyed kitchen. The thought crossed my mind: Have we offended the gods in some way? Is this like, some kind of inverse relationship to my physical well being? The healthier I get, the more the house around me crumbles?
I can't figure it out. I'll think about it while I take the semi-broken, falling apart house phone and try to reach a repair person who can come out on Saturday.