another day

So I had to call a plumber Tuesday. This from the girl who has never once called an electrician, a painter, a contractor, a lawn care specialist, or any kind of repair man, etc. Because I come from a do-it-yourself family, I married a do-it-yourself man, and mostly consider myself to be a do-it-yourself girl, believe me when I say if I could have fixed it myself… I would have.

Craziness started the moment my feet hit the floor that morning. Meh, what’s new. But for the sake of time, let’s just say the problems began after breakfast when Jackson flushed the toilet, then found me working on the computer and suddenly the potty was clogged, the world was ending, and oh yeah, he saw a spider in the bathroom and WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.

After a thirty minute battle with the plunger, during which time the boys carried out world war three in the living room, I admitted defeat and called a plumber. I was determined not to sound like a clueless idiot, but that was dashed when instead of getting the office receptionist like I’d expected, the guy who answered was driving down the interstate while talking on a cell phone and answered something that sounded like “hey ya?” My carefully rehearsed speech degraded into “Pleasetellmeyou’reaplumberbecauseIreallyneedaplumber!”

He promised he’d be there within the hour, and I surveyed the state of the living room with rising panic. By the way, my boys set a record that day. Not only did they empty their toy closet into the floor in thirty minutes flat, they also stripped the beds and I found myself staring into the largest swirling vortex of toys and blankets I’ve ever seen. I don’t care if it was the plumber or the President, I wasn’t about to let a stranger walk through there and risk getting sucked into GeoTrax and feather pillow oblivion.

Ten minutes later we were still whittling away at the mess, stuffing things into bins and okay, behind the couch when the doorbell rang. And dude, I’m all about fast service, but that was fast enough to be annoying. And because I was completely slightly agitated I didn’t bother to disarm the alarm before I flung open the door. Please add heart palpitations and deafness to my ailments. And because I didn’t rattle off the password fast enough, I had to give my life history and naming rights of any future kids to the security company before they were persuaded against sending the police.

Oh yeah, and it wasn’t even the plumber, but a guy from the power company apologizing for a ten second outage he was about to cause. Once my ears quit ringing I was all yeah, sure, thanks for letting me know. Except then I remembered the eight or ten photos open on my desktop that I’d abandoned when I found out we were ALL GONNA DIE. So I’m like, dude, since we just endured auditory trauma together can you give me a minute to shut down my computer? And he’s all sure, no problem. But just as he turned to leave and I shut the door a huge wolf spider skittered across the threshold and ran right at Jackson’s feet.

Dude.

Anyone passing by just then surely thought we’d invited an ax murderer to tea. Actually, Jackson probably would have preferred his company to that of the hairy, flesh eating monster making a beeline for the kitchen. Did I mention WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE?

Fortunately I’m a pro at squashing spiders, but by the time I held up the wad of paper towel triumphantly and informed Jackson he could quit screaming, my one minute was up and the power went out.

All I could do was stand there and belt out “It’s just another day in paradise!”