Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Dead, Dried-Out Reptiles and Appliance FAILS

The day has started out with a general foulness to it.

One only needs to glance at the kitchen sink to see the gig of epic proportions ahead of me.

The difficulty of this gig is compounded by the fact that I had to unload the entire contents of the dishwasher to
rewash them after some gross malfunction caused it to spray chunks of food onto the dishes. The chunks originated from, most likely, the garbage disposal.

It is
so ironic that the two appliances we replaced for the nice young couple who bought our home in Des Moines were 1.) the garbage disposal, and 2.) the dishwasher.

Before I do the dishes this morning , however, I have to clean the sink. More specifically, one HALF of the sink. This is because the side of the sink with the garbage disposal is "out of order" until further notice.

Perhaps it says a lot about me that this whole situation baffles me. My little brain is overwhelmed as it lacks the ability to problem solve (which is
another reason I'm happy to have married Chris. He is a fantastic problem solver).

How does one do dishes, specifically rinse, with only on side of a sink working? How did people do it in the old days? I would never have survived if I was born 100 years ago, truly.

Finishing the dishes today will be one of today's great accomplishments.

The other one will be giving Sven a bath.

The baby apparently knows how to open doors, so we will ALSO be taking a trip to Target for doorknob childproofing apparatuses.

She opened the door and watched with a mild curiosity as the dog flew past her and down the street. There was much commotion coming from our house at that moment this morning, as Wes began weeping because he had left the door unlocked. This scared Miss M, who started crying too.

"It's myyyyy faaauuuuuult," he wailed. "Sven iiis going to diiiiiiiiiiiieeeeee, and it is mmyyyyyyyy fault."

"Yes it is," I agreed, to which Chris pulled me aside out of earshot of the 8 year old.

"Go tell him it isn't his fault," he ordered. "If Sven gets eaten by an alligator, Wes will believe, for the rest of his life that it was his fault."

I relayed this message onto Wes; no parent-of-the-year-award for me .

Sven was let out two days ago (these events usually occurs in clusters) when the boys were home, so we were able to send them out to fetch him. Although Sven evaded the boys for a short time, he unsuccessfully attempted to run through a palm thicket and found himself stuck.

Today, Cal was already at school and Wes was on his way out to the bus stop when the escape occurred.

We were left to our own wiles, which isn't much as Chris announced he had to take a shower and I was in a tank top with a shelf bra ~ not the kind of support needed to be chasing a Cairn Terrier whose maximum speed is about 25 miles per hour (I'm NOT making that up; we learned this once when he got out in Iowa and he chased our car down the street).

Luckily, one of the parents at Wes' bus stop cared more than we did and caught him. He dragged him down the street by his collar to our doorstep.

I looked down at the wretched thing at my feet, who had quite obviously went for another dip in the freshwater canal in our backyard. I silently cursed the alligator that swims in the canal for missing yet another fantastic opportunity for a good meal.

"Thank you so much," I said to the nice man.

"I think he needs a bath," he laughed.

Haha.

He is currently locked in the boys' bathroom (which is already disgusting) with the toilet seat up in case he gets thirsty. I'm not attempting that feat until much later; it is something I must mentally prepare for.

While I was outside retrieving the dog I couldn't help but notice the "cold front" that had passed through our part of the state overnight. It was positively beautiful. The humidity was gone and there was a slight chill in the air ("chill" being 65 degrees). I walked back inside and after throwing the dog in the bathroom and shutting the door, I began to open windows.

The windows either a.) have never been opened, or b.) have never been cleaned out. I enlisted the help of Chris to take care of the dead frogs and geckos, and I vacuumed out the bugs, spider webs and toad turds.

I am reminded why we like to buy new houses: I don't like dealing with other people's problems. It is tempting to buy a used house, momentarily, when I think about all of the window treatments that need to be purchased and installed and all of the flat-painted walls that need several coats of paint.

The trade off will be that there will be no jacked up garbage disposals or dishwashers. They will be new and
ALL OURS. There won't be any dirt or dead reptiles in the window sills. And the unmentionable matter on and around the toilets will have come from something that I married or birthed. Although it is still gross, it is a little less gross when I think of it that way.

I'm counting the days until we can move into our new home.

But now I need to figure out how to do all of these dishes, because the ants are back in full force and probably are wondering what ant-nirvana they stumbled on to, what with all of the dirty dishes on the counter and all.

Four months, three weeks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Svenny! You did not really want the alligators to get him! My little boy!

Pat

Mary Ann said...

Thank you Alena!!!! I'm happy to know someone is reading! Have a great day <3, Mary Ann