Let me tell you a story ….
Once upon a time, in a chapter of my life many years ago, things were not going very well. My marriage had fallen apart and my now ex-husband had all but left the marital home. I was absolutely frantic about finding full-time work, because with three children under the age of nine, I had been home for much of the past decade doing only enough freelance writing to keep the door open with my big toe. There were a lot of cheezies and pop in those days.
And then it happened – the proverbial last straw. On a sunny summer afternoon, I bundled the kids into our old, but serviceable van, and backed it out of the driveway. Just as I turned the steering wheel and moved the van into drive, the transmission gave out and literally (and I do mean literally!) fell out onto the road.
True, the van was old, but I had been hoping to get one more year of service before needing to replace it. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen. So as the neighbourhood kids climbed all over my former mode of transportation while we waited for the tow truck to come and take it away, I simply sat on my front lawn and sobbed.
It’s a funny story now, at the time, I felt complete and utter hopelessness and unfairness.
Fast forward to today when those feelings again raised their ugly heads as I tried desperately to have new kitchen appliances installed. My dishwasher had died and needed replacing. My fridge wasn’t going to last much longer and well, I’ve always hated my stove. Still, I wasn’t sure I was going to change them all out until I fortuitously stumbled across a lease-ending sale at a chain appliance store near me. Suddenly, brand new and even upgrading to stainless steel was in the budget, given the store’s need to get rid of all those floor models.
Excited, I paid the lower-than-expected bill, sorted out delivery and arranged for tradespeople to come to the house to connect the dishwasher and gas stove.
That’s when my luck changed.
I already knew the fridge was a little tall, so my son and I took down the cupboard over it; the plan was to simply shave off about 1/8-inch off the bottom of the face frame. Turns out … the new fridge is closer to ½-inch too tall. So I’m left rethinking exactly how to shrink my cupboard!
In the meantime, the stove and dishwasher arrived, along with the gas man. Turns out … whoever installed my last gas stove didn’t do it to code. So we had to install a shutoff valve (ka-ching!) before hooking up the stove. Finding the main shutoff was a bit of a challenge, but once found, the installation went smoothly. By now, I was thanking my lucky stars there was never an issue with the gas and taking some deep breaths imagining what could have happened.
Enter the plumber. He took a look at my old dishwasher and informs me it wasn’t installed to code either. Again, it turns out … there’s no shutoff valve. As I was starting to add up the additional costs involved with my “cheap” appliances, he pulled the old dishwasher out and I went downstairs.
And that’s when I saw it.
Hot, steaming water was POURING out of the ceiling in my basement. Pouring down to my carpeted floor, my couches, my television, and heaven forbid, the kids’ Xbox. The plumber had somehow pulled apart the “illeagal” coupling to the hot water line.
Fortunately, I knew where to find the main water shutoff inside the house, and we got the water turned off quickly. But now there was another expense (ka-ching!) to be faced in fixing the damage. Immediate action taken, I surveyed the scene. With both hands in my hair, I stood there and shook, trying to recover from the shock of it all, full of the same hopelessness and unfairness of almost a decade ago.
It isn’t often that I want to wail and shriek about my single-mother situation, but this was one of those times. But life must go on, so, after allowing myself a little bit of self-pity, I rolled up my sleeves and got to drying out the basement. The carpet and even the underpad have been rescued and even the ceiling tiles that need replacing are few in number.
The Xbox and the TV? They got a little too wet to recover, so that major appliance retailer and I have a few more conversations to have until everyone in my house is happy again!
