I really want to tell you the rest of the week went without any more issues, buuuut I can’t. In fact, I am pretty sure there is a conspiracy against me. If it can go wrong, can be forgotten or needs to be addressed immediately, then it is going to happen to me…ALL AT ONCE!
After the smoke alarm fiasco, the next day was spent just trying to put out fires…figuratively of course.
That evening was spent with a couple of girlfriends, divvying up some pre-made meals, and some much needed conversations and giggling!
Thankfully, one of those friends happens to be taller than I am, and she helped throw several new smoke alarms in so I wouldn’t have to lug a ladder upstairs. And there was also that pesky problem of my plumbing issue that she helped me get taken care of, lickety split! (four hands are better than two when needing to push two pipes together and tighten the connector together all at the same time!)
I am happy to report the following evening, there was only one more smoke alarm that came to the end of its life….at 3 am…and in my stupor of trying to jump out of bed and figure out which one it was, I ran around the house, listening for the…
Beep beep!
Only to find the death had actually occurred in my own bedroom.
Hey, don’t laugh! I was sleep deprived! But I ripped it from the ceiling and would mourn its loss at another time. (To date, they are all now dead…I have replaced 5 of them, there are 4 more. The following deaths happened during the daytime and with little to no fanfare!)
However, Friday morning was spent something like this:
Cell phone rings…its 7:30 am..
“Mommy!!! I hit the curb and my tire popped!”
FML…
First, the teenager only calls me “mommy” when she needs something. Second, she claims to have been swatting a bug out of her face when she veered over and smacked the edge of the curb. I find this hard to believe. Third, the teenager has zero patience and was in an absolute dramatic tizzy over this…She was two blocks from school.
Okay, well, I can run over, grab a tire and get it replaced. That should only set me back maybe an hour?
I tell her to just leave her car in the parking lot where she had pulled over, and I would run over to get it taken care of as soon as the caregiver arrived.
Friend meets me there and pulls tire off so I can run it to the tire shop.
Tire shop says:
“You have to buy at least 2 tires, because we can’t sell you just one.”
Of course you can’t…I mean, why make this simple, right?
“Ok, I guess I will take two tires.”
He says, “I need the other tire, so we can mount them.”
I sort of stare at him blankly for a moment. This may be obvious to some, but I am still trying to process the fact that I am being forced to buy TWO tires against my will. I am a bit aggravated by all of this, so it took me a while to process that he would, indeed, need the other tire. I imagine telling him where he can go mount them, but that would be rude…Instead, I run back, where friend takes the other tire off..Oh, and the spare he had put on…yeah, that went flat in three minutes…
So, I take the other tire PLUS the spare to get fixed.
By the way, that will be an hour wait.
This tire fiasco took an additional four hours out of my life that I will never get back….
And that was the rest of my week in a nut shell. Not to mention I had the honor of teaching the incredibly impatient teenager how to put the tires back ON! After all, it’s her car. She should know how to do these things too!
I won’t go into the fiasco of soccer games all weekend that resulted in mass chaos because of the detrimental effects of having the wrong colored socks, or shorts, or (GASP!) the wrong number on the jersey..but that is a story for another time!
I will say this though…
I keep visualizing a moment… at some point in my life… when I am on a giant stage, with my crown perched a bit crooked on my head, accepting my “Mom of the Year Award” for my patience, and perseverance of handling teenage dramatics, soccer clothing mishaps, smoke alarms that end their lives at the worst times possible, juggling everyone else’s wants and needs,as well as all the ALS trials and tribulations, AS WELL AS all of my own drama. I can see it now…my children all cheering wildly for me, nodding their heads and shouting how awesome it was growing up with me as their mother…
I think I’ll just keep that one to myself…its gonna be a long time before ever happens…
ALS Fact of the Day~ 