Machinery Sucks - a love story

This morning as I pulled warm clothes out of the dryer, I fell in love again with the used machine that I was able to buy after I had given up trying to fix my old one.

I'm a tomboy and everything, but not the kind that is good with tools. Still, I'm smart so when my dryer stopped working I looked at it and thought, "I'm a quick learner. I can figure this how. How complicated can a dryer be?" I knew of people who had fixed their own dryers, and I was confident that with some internet research, phone calls to fix-it savy friends, and a few trips to repair shops I could have that dryer up and running in no time. And for less than it cost to buy a new one! I was going to be resourceful and thrifty! I was going to cook dinner AND fix my dryer at the same time! I was going to be...SUPER SINGLE MOM! (triumphant horn blast)

Several hours and two trips to the hardware store later I was lying on the garage floor taking out a screw from the back of the dryer with a tool that I can't remember the name of but was having trouble with. I don't even remember what the working theory was about what might have been wrong with the dryer, but whatever it was required me to remove the back of the thing, take out a part and put a new part in. So far, unscrewing the screws and keeping them all together was proving much more of a challenge than I thought it would be, but worse than that was while I was lying there on floor I noticed old cobwebs inches away from my mouth. I backed my head as far away as I could. I guess I could have stopped what I was doing and swept them away, but I was making progress, I had already had to stop a few times to stir the spaghetti sauce and check the pasta, and I wanted to get this whole dryer business over with. Plus, someone had left the garage door open long enough for a swarm of mosquitoes to get in and they kept biting me while I worked. I imagined that this must be what it's like for an evil repairman when a dryer breaks in Hell.

Then a terrifying thing happened. Christopher came in to ask me when dinner was going to be done and my sister walked in behind him to ask if she could help - no that's not the terrifying thing, that's just the build up leading to it. Jees! Lemme tell a story already! Anyway, I asked Steph if she could check on the pasta.

"Ok," she said, and then she slapped her arm. "Man, that mosquito was huge!" She slapped at her other arm. "Oh my God, they're everywhere!"

"I know," I said. I let go of whatever tool I was using to slap the right side of my head and frightened off the little jerk buzzing around my ear.

"How are you able to stay in here?" Steph asked, smacking her leg.

"I don't know," I admitted.

Christopher's eyes went wide. "I'll help!" he cried. "You need a fly swatter!"

A minute later he was back heroically weilding a potato masher. He swung it at a black speck flying by. "I'll save you, Mom!"

"Christopher!" Steph scolded. "That's a potato masher!"

Swish! went the masher. "I couldn't find the fly swatter," he said, and hacked through the air again.

So this is the terrifying thing. When I laugh really hard, I become paralyzed. And watching Christopher race around the dryer swinging a potato masher and yelling "I'll save you!" while almost hitting Stephanie over the head with the thing was too much. I lay there, my mouth frozen open in an insane smile, laughing with no sound, unable to even let go of the screwdriver thingy, or to kill the mosquito that landed on my face, or to move my open mouth away from the cobwebs. I knew if I breathed in I would inhale them. This also struck me as funny. I laughed harder. I laughed so hard I COULDN'T MOVE OR BREATHE. And in that moment I knew that if I kept laughing at us I would die.

"Christopher," I forced myself to say. "Stop!"

""I can't! I have to kill them all!" He scowled at one. "Come here, mosquito!"

"Steph," I whimepered and laughed at the same time. "Please... make him stop!...Going to kill me!"

Stephanie only laughed harder.

"Please...help...spiders...I...hate...dryers."

I rolled over on my back. Somehow. I stared at the ceiling and felt the exhaustion creep in. Christopher's footsteps stopped and he peeked down at me.

"Mom?" he said. "I'm done killing them. Is dinner done?"

"HfgewrwnIwernwer wjguy2y17," I said.

"What?" he asked.

"Derwqeopurwrw01231nnawy," I repeated.

"Mom, you're mumbling and I can't undertsand you. I'm hungry."

"I'm buying a dryer," I said.

And I did, after I tried working on the dryer for a few more days. By the time I officially gave up I had bought two parts that didn't fix anything and spent many hours almost breathing in spider webs. But I did manage to get the back of the dryer off. I considered that a small voctory.

My new dryer is used, it cost less than what I paid trying to fix it myself and it's almost as old as me. But it works like a champ. I love that thing. Because I know that when it eventually breaks I will not fool myself into thinking that I can fix it myself. I look at that machine and think, "I will never ever have to work on you! If a repairman can't fix you, you're out of here!"

And I'm confortable with this. I'm comfortable with the part of me that is not good with tools, and does not want to inhale spiderwebs. I need never learn what a rachet or a screwdriver is or raise my potato masher in violence again.

Dishes in the oven

I've been getting the house ready to sell, which is not so easy when it's full of critters. The top two things that are vital to selling a house are 1) get rid of clutter and 2) get rid of critters and/or all signs of critters. Right now the critter count is up to three (not counting the kids): the dog, the cat and the bunny. I'm supposed to get rid of all signs of them, which is near impossible because the little beasts practically put up flags. Every time Dog has pees on the carpet she announces to the world, "I own this house. If you have any questions, please come to me." The problem with this is that, though generous with urine, she doesn't pay the mortgage or fix anything around the house. So she and I sat down this morning after our walk and we talked this out.

"Look," I said to her, taking a seat at the table. She sat across from me, a her Chiuaua face looking solemn on her Boston Terrier body. My dog is a pretty black and white mix of everything yappy. "I know you like living here and I consider you...well, like family..."
Dog's head jerked into the direction of a fly buzzing to our right. I cleared my throat to get her attention.
"Be that as it may," I continued, "I would really appreciate it if you didn't pee on the carpet anymore. You are technically housebroken, you know. So I know that you know what you're doing."
In reply, she began to bite her butt.
"Exactly! See! That's the problem!" I cried, elated that I was getting my point across. "Now, just bite that butt completely off, and we don't have a problem anymore! Wait..." Dog hopped onto the floor. "Wait, we're not done here! You didn't bite it completely off! You better not pee on anything!" She trotted off in search of something to pee on. "I'm serious!" I yelled after her, and I swore I could hear she and my son laughing together somewhere in the house.
"She tried to housebreak me too!" he giggled, and the dog laughed so hard she wet herself.

So that's how I'm taking care of the no-sign-of-critter rule. Decluttering is coming along much better. I've given away things, I've sold other things, and whatever things that I have not sold or given away I have stuffed in places that no one will look. Like this morning when I put dirty dishes in the oven.

Now, before you judge me, understand that the dishes were overflowing in the sink, everyone was getting ready for school, I was still in my pajamas, and we had 15 minutes before we had to leave. It was either that or the trunk of my car, which honestly, I've done before. Not with dirty dishes, but with laundry and toys or other apparatus that I've found and said, "This goes to something...but what is it? Is it important? Should I throw it away?"
"That's the rabbit, Mom," my daughter tells me.
I hold the fluffy critter closer to my face, examinging it. "But do we use it for anything?"
"Yes," she assures me. "Don't put it in the trunk."

So the rabbit is not in my car, but I've stuffed other things in there in a rush before someone comes to look at the house - paper work, old clothes, old skates. Things that I looked at and thought, "I'll go through all of this later. Right now I just need it out of the way." And so I drive around with it. This is not entirely due to tiredess. Some of it is just plain I-don't-want-to-do-it-ness. When I come home from work I want to change into pajamas, spend time with the kids, catch up with someone on the phone, write, or read. This THIS is why there are dishes in my oven! Darn it, I'm just not the decluttering type by nature.

Or I could just blame it on the dog. It's all her fault.

What's For Dinner?

When I get home from work, dragging my tired, limping body through the door looking bleary eyed and beaten down by the world, the first thing the kids want to know is what's for dinner. I am convinced that this is not because they are hungry. It is because they want to be miserable about it.

"Mom, what's for dinner?" Christopher will ask running up to me.

"Chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn," I'll tell him.

His mouth will drop open. His face is confused and terrified. It's like suddenly he's in a nightmare that he can't wake up from.

"Chicken?!" he'll cry. "I HATE chicken!"
"No you don't," I'll remind him.
"Yes, I do!"
"What's wrong?" Emma will ask rushing to his side.
"We're having gross stuff for dinner!" he'll tell her.
She looks at me. "Again?!"
I'll close my eyes, and take a deep breath. "Yes. Again. I know it's not what you wanted. I'm sorry things had to turn out this way."
"Nooooooooooooo!!!!," she, Christopher and Claire (who has overheard the conversation) will cry and fall to the ground in convulsions, screaming something about how if we were a decent family we would have Subway.


In fact, Claire asked for Subway one night and when I told her that it wasn't in the budget for that week, the look of hope on her face shriveled and she said, "Does that mean we're poor?"

Interesting how fast food not being in the budget is a sign of poverty, isn't it?

So what do I want for dinner, you ask? I want Subway too. And inside I am kicking and screaming because it's not in the budget. I would rather not have a chicken that's been in the crockpot all day. I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I can't seem to cook chicken in the crockpot without it falling to pieces. And it's not a juicy, falling off the bone, tender kind of falling-to-pieces. The chicken just melts. My crockpot is not so much a covenient bit of crockery that cooks for me all day, as much as it is just a disintegrator.

This is what happens: I walk in the door to the good smell of chicken, and the horrified screams of the children who have just noticed that I am not carrying bags of fastfood. I ignore those people and walk into the kitchen. I lift the lid of the crockpot and there is a fully cooked golden chicken bubbling in the broth. Bits of rosemary, onion, and garlic crest the top of it. I poke it with a fork and all of the meat falls off of it at once, sinks to the bottom of the pot, and all that's left on my fork is bone. I don't know how or why this happens but it does. And then there is more screaming, and so I make them go sit at the table and we eat individual bags of chips.

But where's the fiber in that? The Vitamin C? All of those things that parenting magazines beat me over the head with? Where's the flax, damn it?? Well...it's at the bottom of the crockpot along with all of my patience and my sanity. And my budget.

So we gather at the table. We eat the chips, or the pancakes I've made, or the peanut butter crackers with dry ramon noodles on the side. And we talk about our day. And then eventually there's more screaming. But we're full.