~:: Knocking on Wood ::~

I am on the couch, tangled up in blankets, alternately coughing and wishing I were asleep.  Not the least unhappy, though.  Just tired out.  I have many photographs to offer you.  But I can’t.  Not till you read this:

An outline of the last month or so:

1. In the first week of June, we noticed that the food in the fridge was not so cold anymore.  Call Service Guy.  He checks it and cleans under it, reminding me I should clean the dust and puppy hair off the coils underneath the thing at least once every five years (not his words – he is more of an every-coupla-weeks person).  “Keep an eye on it over the next few days,” he says.  “Call me if it doesn’t get better.”

2. The fridge doesn’t get better.  SG comes back.  “Your compressor is definitely going out,” he says, and whistles a funeral march for me.  He leaves, telling me, “Buy Whirlpool.”  The fridge is ten years old.  Could have lived to fifteen if I’d have gotten down on the floor and vacuumed under it.  Like I’m gonna remember to do that.  Ever.  SG has not charged us a cent so far.  This is an unfortunate blow to the finances, but not impossible to deal with.

3. Buy new fridge – the kind I’ve always wanted.  Could have been worse.  Could have been better – if it had been free.  Or if I’d at least have been planning on the purchase.

4. A week and a half later, the dishwasher begins to behave irrationally.  First, we ignore it, assuming the thing will get over whatever is bothering it.  But it doesn’t.  So we call SG again, this time insisting that he charge us something (this was, after-all the third visit).   There are racks of dirty dishes dripping all over the house. He comes to look. Fiddles with it.  Says to run it again and see.   We pay him for the service call.   We run the machine and it does a fine job.  Another day goes by.  We run it the next evening with the rest of the dishes.  By morning, the dishwasher is full of water but no dishes are clean.  G tries to start it again, and flames shoot out of the dial.  Well.  Not really.  But there’s a spark.  A BIG spark.

5.  SG comes out again.  Takes a look. Begins to whistle same durge.  The two appliances were the same age, but who would have expected them to have bonded so deeply?  Gin drops by on way to Kris’ family reunion to drop off Sully, the beautiful and dignified (sometimes) long haired German Shepherd – for a week’s stay.  Tucker and Toby are not rejoicing.

6.  The day before the 4^th we buy a new dishwasher.  (Two: one for L’s birthday, too.) Get it home.  Spend hours upside-down installing—first L’s then ours.  Collect dishes from various surfaces (yes, we did handwash meanwhile).  Ran the thing in the evening.  It WORKS!!!!  YAY!!!  Wake up on the 4^th.  Dishwasher is full of water and no dishes are clean.  WHAA?????  I call Sears service that night.  Tucker tries to kill Sully (who is, thankfully, slow to anger).

7.  Sears guy (NOT our SG) shows up to fix. “Hmmm,” he says.  “This is a newer model.  Blew a fuse.  I don’t have the part.  Ten days.”  And leaves.  New dishwasher – broken – can’t be fixed for 10 DAYS?????  (A NEWER model and you don’t have the part?  REALLY????)  Tucker tries to kill Sully again.  (This is like a pea trying to kill an elephant.)  We celebrate the night of the 4^th by handwashing party things and cursing the people down the street who have started their fireworks every night for the last five nights at midnight or later.

8.  Two days after, we find the one bank in the region that is willing to do Healthcare Savings Accounts, go there to set one up, only to find that G’s driver’s license has expired and cannot be used as an ID.  THE STATE ALWAYS SENDS AN ALERT – RENEW!!  RENEW!!  But they DIDN’T.  Not this time.  We find that our passports have also expired and cannot be used to prove that G is real and can even GET a renewed license.  His birth cert is a copy????  Since when???  Where is the REAL ONE we used in the FIRST PLACE?  Does he LOOK like an illegal alien????

9. When G comes out of the license building, he finds that his truck will not start.  The gas pump has died.  We spend hours playing musical vehicles, but finally get it home.  Meanwhile, the horse trailer, recently used to haul our riding mower to the mower doctor is full of Cam’s sick riding mower and the two aged and dead dishwashers.

10. With four people in the Highlander, we find that the passenger side back window will not open.  Anticipating a road trip, we take it to the mechanic.  (The truck is at another mechanic and the Suburban is connected to dead dishwashers.)  He finds the problem, orders the part (another $324) – only to find that the part is two pieces, one of which we don’t need to replace (that was the part that cost $324) and the other of which, the actual MOTOR that powers the window, is NO LONGER BEING MANUFACTURED.  And to buy one new from a third party is MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.  We give up and take the car home.

11. Gin comes to visit for one day before they go home.  Suddenly, Scoots has a fever (donated by a cousin) and Cam’s family gets sick. Gin’s family leave to drive home.   Gin has caught the sore throat.  Next day, the kids and I pile in the car (ROAD TRIP!!!) and head off after them.  (Photo essay to follow).  Meanwhile, Sears calls back – after 8 of the ten days we are waiting for the part have passed – to say, “Part backordered.  We’re sure you will have it within a year.  Too bad.  See ya around.”  I am driving home from Santa Fe.  It’s an eighteen hour drive if you stop every five minutes to take pictures.  When G tells me about the Sears call, my eye begins to twitch.

12. My throat has already begun to feel funny.  It gets less funny and more yucky as time goes on.  And now, here I am, writing this list on my own couch, once again amazed how – during a time when you look ahead happily,  thinking all will be peaceful and you will be saving money – everything can and will blow up at one time.

Never – never – never think of your peaceful life with any kind of smug satisfaction.  And that is the moral of the story.  I really, really hope I am summing up a period of trial and massive expenditure  that is, at least for the time being, finally OVER.

Good thing there’s so much danged wood in my house.  But then, maybe I shouldn’t have said that . . .