Such is My Life

Bank issues adverted for the moment, as is the car. Neither of which was an easy fix. I spent most of last night after my husband got home from practice under the car’s hood. LOL, I sent my husband to buy a new battery from Checkers down the street on his way home, thinking that while he was there he would put the new battery in. After so many years with him you would think that I would know better than to assume he would think to do that, because he came home with the old battery still in and the brand new one sitting right there on the passenger seat. So there I sat 9:30 at night with my sleeves literally rolled up working on the car while my husband stands there holding the light for me. It’s pretty funny when I think back to it, I mean how often do you see the wife working on the car late at night while the husband stands there holding the light. I even mentioned something to him about it while I was working and his response to it was “I’m spending quality time with my wife, who knows that I know little to nothing about most this stuff.” Although it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear after an already long day, I have to give him points for that answer.

And at least he is being honest because he truly doesn’t, but I think he likes to keep it that way! His father was a mechanic and even when he was younger and spent time with his father in the shop he didn’t care to learn then either. I on the other hand was raised on the premise that if I was going to drive then I was going to have to learn how to take care of my car and take care of myself while I was in it. My Dad would always tell me that if something happened while I was on the road then I only had myself to rely on to get it fixed. So he taught me to change a tire, battery, oil, breaks, fuse and the list goes on. Although I didn’t really appreciate it then I certainly appreciate it now. Because of him I am not scared to take something apart to get it fixed and put it right back together.

Now I’m sure back when I was young he probably didn’t find it a amusing that when he would pull a fuse out of my car, thinking that would prevent me from being able to use it while he wasn’t home (yes when I got in trouble I’d get my car taken away) that I would figure out just what he did and take a little walk up to checkers and buy myself and new fuse and take my car anyways. I sure hope he is proud to know that I’ve been able to hold my own when it comes down to it. Because of him teaching me lose skills I’ve learned I can do quite a bit on my own and don’t have to call for help all the time if something goes wrong.

Over the summer our house AC unit stopped working and being we live in Tucson, AZ… losing our AC is a BAD BAD BAD thing. There is almost nothing worse than to be in a house that is 95+ degrees inside and 110 or more outside! So knowing full and well that I know NOTHING about the AC unit, I did know that they have fuses. So at 8pm on a Sunday night I’m running into Lowes as it closing and was able to talk the nice young lady into letting me come in just to get new fuses. I got home and put them in (yes as my husband watched) and try to start the AC up, and I got NOTHING!

Crap, right? Well it wasn’t so bad because we also have a swap cooler on the roof of the house. For those of you who are reading this and thinking WTF is a swamp cooler, you probably live somewhere where you have 40% or more humidity more than just a month or so here like we do, but basically it a box that has water that soaks through pads that are kept on the outer inside edges of this big metal box and on the inside is a motor that blows a fan that pushes cool moist air through the vents into the house. Anyway, it’s late and its dark by now and so there I am pulling out the ladder and climbing up on the roof, pulling apart getting it ready to start up.

An hour later, I’ve got everything put back together and water valve turned on for the roof and everything ready to start it up. I yell down to my husband to start it up and I head on down to finally eat dinner and cool off. Sure enough about 20 minutes later it quits working too. Such is my life… I climb back up and check everything out and tell my husband to try again and a couple minutes later, what does it do? It turns off again! At this point I’m hot, I’m tired and frankly I’m in a pretty foul mood also. I head down pissed off and make a bed on the floor for the kids in our room, put every fan we own (and yes, we only own 1 fan) in the room and tell everyone it’s bed time!

1st thing in the morning the very 1st call I made was to the repair company, and of course, they tell me they can’t make it out until the next morning. So I’m a resourceful person, I head off to Lowes again and I buy a couple of those window AC units. The same nice young lady that let me come in late the night before is at the cash register, she looks at what I have and then looks at me and asks me if I had a long night. Sheesh, did it really show? I check out, probably a little more pissed off then when I stared, get home and realize that the windows in our house (all but the bedroom windows) open to the side and not up. And to top it off my office window is NOT one of those windows that opens up. So needless to say my kids camped out in the bedrooms where I was able to install the AC units and I sat in a very hot office and worked for the remainder of my work shift. By time the day was done, so was I and packed up the kids and went to a hotel!

The next morning I left the kids at the hotel with their dad and headed home to wait for the repair man and to work. I don’t think I have ever been so happy to shells out $300 in my life, but I’m sure my husband and kids were happy to come home to a cool house and a much more pleasant wife and mother.