No. We Have to Be Making This Up.....But We Aren't....

This time, before I list our traumatic events, I want you to know that they are all solved.

Yesterday, I heard from a few people, that perhaps my blog posts had scared everyone to death. So maybe I should be a little more circumspect in what I list and leave some of the stuff out.

But then, how would I have ANY fun? Posting on this blog, given the junk that happens to us, is like telling ghost stories around a campfire! By the end of the stories, no one knows who's going to live or die or get sued or fall in a septic tank.

Septic tank?

Did you mention septic tanks?

Why, THAT'S a coincidence, because WE HAD OUR SEPTIC TANK DUG OUT TODAY.

YES! Our plumbing backed up to where WE COULD NOT USE IT AT ALL.

Not only that, but Bill came down with a gastrointestinal reaction to his antibiotics such that PLUMBING USE BECAME COMPLETELY MANDATORY! At the same time that we lost all our plumbing.

Please know I'm not kidding when I say that for several hours, the only option we had left, which option we admit we used, was going "potty" in the WOODS, despite driving rainstorms all morning. Which lovely cold rain made the experience even more pleasant. Not.

And as I was doing my thing at various times in the woods, due to much coffee drinking, I was admiring the little sprouts that were coming up in the nice leaves of my Robinson Crusoe "bathroom" amidst the rain-drenched rhododendrons, and I did have to start laughing because I realized that this was so far beyond ridiculous.

But thank HEAVEN for our contractor, who, even tho it was Saturday, out of the mercy of his bless-ed heart, found plumbers to come out here by early afternoon and rescue us. It took them the rest of the day, and given that it was TWO plumbers, at time and a half, I calculate that for the price of it, I could've paid off Ford Motor Credit company and bought myself a nice used van.

But yes. This ACTUALLY happened. TODAY.

And I admit that for a few minutes, despondency did set in. Bill and I were slouched on the bench outside, watching the plumbers digging up the septic tank, as we listened to "worst case scenarios" such as perhaps having to abandon our septic tank and do a $15,000 hookup to the sewer that is about a half mile away from us, and other such delightful possibilities. All of which involved moving to a hotel for a few weeks.

We DID actually start to get depressed at that point.

But suddenly, I remembered some slogans from the 12-step program I have joined in order to find out what I did wrong in my parenting to cause certain developments along the lines of the Ford Credit Fiasco, and quite a FEW VERY similar events since Christmas, that I shan't describe, to spare the reputations of the TWO unnamed young persons whose behavior has driven me into Codependents Anonymous.

And you probably think I'm joking.

Nope. I'm on step four of the twelve steps. Yes, I realized that I must have done something totally backwards in my parenting, something I'm completely unaware of, and I want to know what it was. You'd be amazed how many parents are in my group, telling stories about their adult kids and saying "Where did I go WRONG?"

But that's another day's post.

For TODAY, all I have is: our septic tank got dug up, our toilet got yanked, our pipes got whatever-ed, we "tinkled" in the woods, in the rain, and as for our Cancer Fightin' Cowpoke, he coughed LESS today, looked whiter, is bleeding from his side but has no fever, and ate a little FOOD! Even better, he said, "I feel a little bit better. Weak, very weak, but better."

Hey, coulda been a much worse day! We were 5 minutes from moving to that hotel when the plumbers, at one point, said, leaning on their shovels in the rain, "We just don't know what to do to fix this."

That was the nadir.

But once I started laughing and busting out the 12-step slogans, I felt so much better.

"There's no such thing as the end of the world, except the end of the world!" I said to Bill, courageously.

Bill said, to that one, "I think I see the end of the world over there where those two guys are shoveling."

Well, that's all I've got to report for today's fun. Let's see what TOMORROW holds for us!

Thanks always for caring and following this crazy, crazy plot.

Nighty night!