What Qualifies as a Bad Week, Part 1

Day started off great.  Jack was sent home from school after hitting two kids and calling his teacher a disease.

Let me start with Tuesday.

Jack was sent home from school. He hit two kids and called his teacher a disease. Spent the day of reckoning in his room. Won’t go into the details, but don’t think he’ll ever get in trouble at school EVER AGAIN.

Wednesday, the day before yesterday…John has a business trip in Vegas that I have been planning on going with him for two months. The trip was extended, and I have a “Mother’s Day” program at Jack’s school that I would be permanently excommunicated from pre-school social graces if I missed on Thursday of next week. So, I need to get myself home on Wednesday instead of flying on his company plane. So, the crafty “ex-consultant” that I was once thought that I would just use 20K of the 168K of the frequent flier miles I had accrued over my brilliant career on Delta to get home. I logged on to Delta, and my account only had 2100 miles in it! They had EXPIRED my miles. All eight years of them! Reason: I hadn’t flown on Delta since 2001 when my girlfriend Sarah was married and my account was “inactive”. Inactive? My ass. I was pregnant, breastfeeding, and wiping butts. When in the hell was I going to fly on Delta? I called, I pleaded, and they told me “too bad”….Too bad? Oh the benefits of MOTHERHOOD!!!! I can’t escape.

I woke up to a pot of coffee with a sweet note from my husband. “I hope you have a better day today”. Jack woke up with a raging fever. Refusing to get out of bed, he remained in my room (yes, he slinks in nightly) moaning. Mignonne was crying because her top tooth is coming in and she was being “high” maintenance. Ashton kept reminding me that it was doughnut day and he was being a good boy. God bless him.

Things were going as good as could be expected under the circumstances. I was treating Jack with Tylenol and fluid. Ashton was wearing the Buzz Lightyear costume (with nothing underneath) in the sand box. Mignonne was destroying the playroom. Jack then decided that he was feeling a little better and joined his brother in the sandbox. Ashton then announced that it was time to watch “the Incredibles” and he wanted to wear his Incredible Costume. I started the movie upstairs in my bedroom. It was now 10:30 a.m. My father was in our backyard fixing our lanai screened enclosure to get the lizards and frogs out of my life.

The phone rang at 10:47. Jack decided that he didn’t feel great anymore and was going to go back to bed. Upstairs he headed to join Ashton. On his way, he decided that he needed to brush his teeth in my bathroom…in my sink…using my TOOTHBRUSH…

At 11:04 as I was sitting on my lanai on the phone I heard a “waterfall effect” of running water coming from somewhere. I stood up, walked inside and saw what I would describe as a fire hose of water coming out of my recessed light directly below my bathroom. Then I watched it “move” across my ceiling, and started coming out of the recessed light fixture closest to my lanai (we’re talking 20 feet!). My brain calculated that something was seriously going wrong upstairs and I dropped the phone and ran upstairs, calling for my father to come quick.

I slipped on my floors in my bedroom (REAL HARDWOOD). I ran into the bathroom. WATER WAS EVERYWHERE. It was coming from my sink, Niagara Falls was emptying water onto the floors. I turned off the water in my sink and pulled the drain which had been plugged. Jack was in my bed with his head on the pillow. Ashton was jumping on my couch. Mr. Incredible was saving the universe. I reached for the towels under my sink, WATER GUSHED OUT from the cabinet onto the floor. The towels were soaked. I ran to the boys bathroom, grabbed all of their towels and threw myself onto the bedroom floor trying to stop the water from spreading. I pushed my body and the river of water back to the bathroom. Waves started to form.

By then my father reached upstairs. All of my drawers were filled with water. All of my makeup, all of my jewelry, my hairdryer. Sunk. Frank took over in the bathroom as I tried to interrogate the suspects. Jack said “Ashton did it”. Ashton said, “what?” Both were sent to their room. I ran downstairs. Water was still gushing out of my light fixtures from the ceiling with the SAME INTENSITY. My chair was absorbing the water closest to the lanai. My rug was absorbing the Main drain. I threw all of my cleaning supplies out of their buckets and started getting buckets situated to collect the water. I emptied one of the buckets (a five gallon buddy) three times before I threw screaming Mignonne in her bed, and called my husband at work. He wasn’t answering his phone. I had the receptionist find him to say that there had been an emergency at home and he needed to come home right away.

Ashton said, “can I watch Mr. Incredible?” I knew he was innocent. Jack was in his bed, covers over his head. GUILTY.

So all of the drywall tape in the downstairs has been pulled. Fans are blowing My insurance company has been called so that we can get cancelled again. The hardwood floors in our bedroom and closet are RIPPLED and ready to be torn out. (About 300 sq. feet worth) My area rug is outside on the lanai drying out. I’m going to take some valium and open a bottle of wine for lunch, might eat some chicken with it.