I didn't realize it til about half the day was done but I was having a pretty bad day yesterday. Sometimes it starts with a bang, sometimes a whisper and sometimes, as it did yesterday, it comes by phone.....
"Guess what your children just ate," asked the wife on the phone.
This is never a good question. They're only mine when they do something bad. Apparently the cat discovered leftover Mexican food (Chipotle's) on the stove. In a move guaranteed to baffle Pet Science, he somehow managed to move it to the edge of the stove, then catapult it to the floor, where both of the little buggers consumed it.
Have you ever heard of this kind of inter-species cooperation before? They could have their own show: Ren and Marshall Rule the Roost, Sundays on Animal Planet.
I got this news right before lunch. I had to go out for lunch because Ren had consumed parts of my lunch the night before. Off the eight of us went, because my boss made the mistake of mentioning french toast, causing a Food Avalanche.
Although I complained about this diner, with their twenty dollar burgers, we were on our way. Up we pulled, only to discover that the diner had gone out of business. They had the nerve to never even let us know.
Again, off we went, to one of our usuals. Everyone got their food and exactly what they ordered. Except me, of course. The waitress kept telling me it was coming up any minute now. Ten minutes later my sandwich arrived. Perhaps they had to grow the chicken to make sure it was truly fresh.
Hours later, back at work, my wife and Marshall came to pick me up. Ever the demure and classy lady, my wife asked me if I knew what my son just did.
Uh-oh.
"He pooped on your seat in the car, after that Mexican food."
My coworkers fell like dominoes.
Although I'm against them on principle, I suddenly became thankful for car seat covers. The ride home was less than odiferous and we were relieved. Not as relieved as Marshall, but still.
After all of that I began to feel that the Universe was having a bit of a giggle at my expense. It has certainly happened before and I expect it will certainly happen again.
At this point, you know that there could only be one thing left: the lawnmower.
I filled the bastard with gas, as I ran out one quarter of the way through over the weekend. At this point I need to remind all of my good friends here that there is simply nothing I hate more than mowing the lawn. There's no logical reason for it but there we are. I'd almost rather sit in that lovely chair at my dentist's office (Dr. Mengele).
The throttle cable simply broke a while back and I've spent most of my time jury-rigging it to function but the mower had had enough of me at that point; it was going to keep quitting while I tried to keep mowing.
I'm surprised you guys in Florida didn't hear me spend an hour or so screaming at the five horsepower beast. I would mow a few strips and the beast would shut off. I would adjust the new wire and it would start, mow a bit, then shut off again. Then I would burn myself trying to fix it, causing yet another fusillade of Very Nasty Words and a warning from my wife that there are children on the block.
When one is in the middle of a good old-fashioned tirade, the last thing we need to hear is that there are children on the block. Most of the children on the block, especially the ones produced by the Loud Family, have vocabularied that far exceed mine, especially when they're outside flipping off their parents.
My wife attempted to help but that didn't work out so well. I suggested she either fix it herself or sit on the steps and supervise: two alpha males cannot fix a lawnmower. Or much of anything else.
After some more wire and even more screaming, I managed to finish off the lawn, to everyone's great relief. Having had the pleasure earlier of throwing out the errant car seat cover, I was free to sit down and sweat all over my recliner.
But the joke, as usual, was on me: Marshall's new pool got filled and he was racing all over the house, completely soggy from swimming and sitting on all the furniture.
Yeah, we're a tv show without need for scripting.
