It’s All Fun & Games Until There’s Poop in the Shower!
All Disasters, Please Line Up Single File Behind This Line
Lest anyone feel jealous about our fancy new Californian life, let me disclose some (very first-world, but still quite annoying) non-bliss-ness business:
Things started strong. Robb and the kids flew on New Year’s Day, with no delays, no terrorist attacks, no one melting down in the airport and licking the floor, and no strangers coughing directly into their mouths. Meanwhile, my mom, dog and I drove the 5 days cross-country, and did not get murdered even once in any of the Airbnb’s we rented, the dog did NOT vom, and we were not any of the several dozen cars and semi-trucks we saw off-road, flipped and jack-knived in the snow. #winning
The kids and Robb moved into our temporary digs on the coast, where we were meant to stay for 7–10 days while we waited for our moving truck to arrive. It was expensive, but it’s been a stressful year, and we really wanted to look out at the ocean from a private heated pool. WHAT!? It sounded almost too good to be true!
Within minutes of donning their suits, warming the pool, and jumping in, the next-door neighbor was bellowing over the fence that the renter we’d been working with didn’t own the house, dogs were NOT allowed, and the heated pool was not supposed to be heated. Cool, cool.
From…I think I was in Wyoming by then(?)…I found another Airbnb for them: less ocean, no pool, kinda hanging weirdly off the side of a mountain, but almost all the appliances worked, and there were wild turkeys close by! And no screamy fence guy. The owner of this new Airbnb agreed that if our moving truck was going to be late, we could stay there, adding extra days as needed. Perfect! Right up until she needed us out urgently and the moving truck still hadn’t left Michigan.
Neat!
So sick of hemorrhaging money on eating out and renting Airbnbs, we decided to just squat in our for reals permanent rental house, sleeping on borrowed air mattresses and eating and doing schooling on a folding table. I boiled water for tea and cooked simple meals all in our one pot and one pan, like Mrs. Bucket in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
Finally, our things arrived and we could really start to settle…just like that dark stuff on the floor of the shower and bath tub…what IS that?
Oh. It’s poop. Of course it is.
So then the plumber comes and snakily peeks into our pipes, finding this major metal part inside the pipes…but apparently the metal part IS the pipe? So, that’s not great. But don’t worry! He reassures us that we can shower, we can flush, it’s just that when we do, there will be shit on the driveway, mmkay? And no laundry, obviously (or…same. Driveway shit). A WEEK LATER they come back to do some major work and now we have a man’s head at eye-level with garden gnomes because that’s how deep the hole is.
In my heart.
Sigh.
Mrs. Bucket, the unappreciated laundress, would have handled this with aplomb, hand-washing her lazy, ungrateful family’s garments while singing an encouraging song FOR THEM, but I just let my family live in filth and ordered take-out for every meal and whined a lot.
Also, yes, ok, it’s beautiful here and we can be outside every day, and there really are mountains out every window, just hanging out, being majestic. And we have been in the ocean in January, and the fruit and vegetables truly do taste better, and there’s an orange tree in our yard, and….all of these minor catastrophes have been easier to deal with because of the sunshine and the hope that it’ll come together and we are where we should be.
We’re thiiiiiiiissss close to having all working appliances and no holes where there ought not be holes. Here’s hoping!
