You Know It’s Gonna Be A Bad Day
(The background story: All these random items will fall neatly into place, just hang in there. We got paid last Friday. I haven’t cooked a dinner since I can remember. We keep a wooden bar in the back sliding door to prevent criminals from lifting the door off it’s track. We already have a window that was cracked [by the monkeys around here - how else?])
When…
It’s Monday.
The baby smears chocolate poptart on Daddy’s work shirt.
Your day starts out with a fight with your honey.
You scream at your kids. And I don’t mean a little yellin’, I mean all out screamin’ like an idiot.
It’s Monday and your honey got paid on Friday. Your honey comes in from work saying that he had gone to the gas station and the debit card is declined.
…and you determine at this point to try to make the evening better…
So you tell the kids that just as soon as you get dinner started (actually cooking dinner for the first time since you can remember) you’ll go swimming (again) with them, your honey says he’ll come join you.
You turn the spaghetti sauce on low, leave the potatoes in the oven to bake, and go out to turn the day around.
While swimming, your middlest says he can’t get in the house.
You realize the bar you keep in the sliding door has slid back down. Locking you out.
The front and side doors - dead bolted.
All the windows - carefully locked.
The extra key kept for such times? Sitting on the back counter inside the house to be put back outside after the last time we locked ourselves out.
That cool waterproof phone to call the locksmith (which would’ve been useless since the debit card was declined)? On the base inside the house.
The keys to the van to go to the in-laws for suggestions? Inside the house.
So after wandering around the house barefoot, wet, and clueless for approximately 45 minutes with the children saying things like, “My baked potatoes are gonna burn!” “What happens if the spaghetti catches on fire?” “Are we gonna get to spend the night outside?” “Can we camp out tonight?” “Are we gonna die out here?”
We decide that the best solution, the best now, is to go on and fully break that already cracked window in the bedroom. With a heavy heart I slammed it with a gardening tool, reached inside, unlocked the window, and became the hero to excited exclamations such as, “You did it!!”
Realizing then that the window was directly above our bed. The bed that I would be drifting off to sleep in approximately 3 hours was covered in shards of glass.
Dinner was salvaged. The children were fed, bathed, and put to bed. Our bed was vacuumed out, sheets changed, and the window blocked with a sheet of wood and ironically, the wooden bar that started the whole thing.
And with the daylight of the next day came a new perspective. The wood in the window makes it nice and dark for snoozing. Our elderly neighbors bought a new computer and wanted my honey to help them with it - and insisted on giving us $50 cash. The window was already gonna have to be replaced. The sheets were in desperate need of washing. At least the non-secured window is in our room now - just makes me feel better that it’s no longer the kids’ room.
And we know that our feeble attempts at keeping the house secure are effective. At least for non-criminal types like ourselves.
oh girl, haven’t we all had days like that!
i’m glad you were able to turn it around and see the silver lining.
hope the debit card thing gets worked out. . .
I laughed at this. Not at your misfortune, but at how familiar it sounds! My husband has said for years that we need to change our last name to Murphy (no offense to any Murphys out there…) because with us–if it can go wrong, IT WILL.
I feel for ya girl! I’ve been there too many times with the debit card thing. Once it was the DAY AFTER he got paid!!! But it always works out. And the last dinner I remember cooking is when my mother-in-law came over last week to teach me how to make her stuffed bell peppers. I keep telling myself I’ll cook again eventually. Just after this baby pops out and we get to a “new kind of normal”. (Since the old normal will be gone forever with the arrival of a new baby. LOL) Hang in there!
oh yes sister,wow,that was certainly a day.
You know when mine were little(oh my goodness,can I actually say that now?)they broke out all of the windows in my son’s room. We learned that replacing the glass with plexi was just as cost effective and much stronger….
and my younger daughter,we actually had to physically board up her windows at one time,for fear she would hurt herself because she continously TRIED to break them.
Oh how funny! Well, I’m sure it wasn’t at the time, but after the fact … it’s humorous.
My former next door neighbor locked herself out one night and tore apart the lock and knob trying to get in. It was a similar scene. When me and Marcia were together we were a bit “Lucy & Ethel ISH” . LOL!
Oh, honey. Do you know how much I love you and would LOVE to live closer so we could go through our days like this together. Here’s a part of my day today.
Background: DC#3 has been invited to spend the night with a friend and ride up to Sikeston, MO and eat at Lambert’s Steak House tomorrow.
DC#3: “Mom, I need money for tomorrow.”
Me: “Well, honey I don’t have any cash and the banks are all closed so I can’t get any. Aren’t they paying for your lunch since they invited you?”
DC#3: “I need MONEY, mom. You shouldn’t've spent all your money on stupid fireworks for N and her friends.”
Me: “We didn’t buy any of the fireworks. N’s friends bought all of those and shared them with the boys.”
DC#3: Sullen silence at the reality of being (for lack of a better word) WRONG.
Me: “Call A’s mom and I’ll see if she can pay for your lunch tomorrow and and I’ll reimburse her on Monday.”
Phonecall confirms that A’s mom was planning to pay for DC#3’s lunch all along.
Me: “OK. You’re good to go, they were already planning to pay for your lunch.”
DC#3: “Well, I KNEW THAT. I wanted money for souvenirs but I NEVER have any money!”
Leaves the house in an absolute huff. Is it necessary to say that this child is 13? And being 13 she has NO JOB and NO RIGHT to money? This child should be grateful I feed her and clothe her and don’t charge her for the HOURS (not minutes) she uses on her dad’s cell phone. AAAAAHHHHHHHH!
I walk to bedroom.
Me to dh: “Can you give me ten reasons NOT to kill DC#3? Or just five. Five could maybe enough.”
Dh: “Because you don’t want to end up in jail as someone’s girlfriend?
Oh My Word!!
you poor, poor thing.
Oh, I loved this post!!!! It’s enjoyable for us to read about, even if it wasn’t so great to actually live through.
Sounds like it worked out OK–thanks for sharing it!
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