My daughter desperately wants a pet.
We have a cat but he is not enough. She never got to experience him as a kitten and now he is just a grumpy old man who hates kids and sleeps all day.
Her ideal pet would be a puppy but I have enough small bodies to clean up after and a puppy is not in the cards. If we get a pet, it needs to be a practical pet. A pet that gives back.
Like a chicken.
Anyway, she wants a pet so badly that at the beginning of the year she instigated a request for a pet in her fourth grade classroom. After much coercion, the teacher agreed to a fish. She brought in a bright blue Beta. They named it Finnegan.
I’m not sure how the other fourth graders feel about Finnegan but my daughter loves him. She feeds him most days and occasionally stays in at recess to clean out his tank. Because of her deep affection for Finnegan and her commitment to his care, her teacher allowed her to bring this class fish home for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Finnegan survived our house for three days and now the guy is belly up in his Tupperware travel tank.
Ding, dong the fish is dead, people!
Of course the fish is dead. Because that’s the kind of ridiculous crap that always happens here, just west of Wacky. The fish should have known better. The teacher should have known better. I should have known better.
That little blue back-stroker was cursed from the get go.
And now he's Finne-gone.
My daughter is wandering the house in her dirty pajamas quietly crying over the loss of her dear BFF (Blue Fish Finnegan).
I just sighed the “Mom Sigh”.
So, what do I do now?
Do I send the fish to school in a little cotton ball padded box so that her classmates can say good-bye?
Flush, cremate or bury?
Do I buy a new fish?
Do I buy the same color to help them forget or a new color to distinguish between the old fish and the new fish?
And, most importantly…
Can I call the new fish “Finn-again”?
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Washed Up and Washed Out
My washing machine took a dump this morning.
It hit the spin cycle with my husband’s hockey gear tucked inside and then stopped. And then started. And then stopped. It sounded like “The Little Engine That Could” except it was more like, “Chug, chug, chug…Hell, no! Chug, chug, chug…No way! Chug, chug, chug…Give it up!”
Plus, I smelled something that reeked a teensy bit of melted rubber and that is never good.
I am not sure that this family of five can survive without a washing machine. Props to the pioneers for handling it old school with lye soap and washboards but the only kind of “mettle” in this 21st century gal is in one of my teeth. Which is obviously not going to get the laundry done.
Honestly, if I were my washing machine, I would have quit way before now. I mean, just last weekend I loaded up that guy with the fiesta of puke and poo left over from a six-year-old boy’s bout with the stomach flu. Not to mention my husband’s hockey and workout gear. No amount of spinning and rinsing can get the stink off that stuff.
To the machine’s credit, it lasted three years longer than its partner, the dryer. Both were replaced 12 years ago and the dryer pooped out first. We found out that the repair would cost nearly as much as a new dryer, and factoring in advancements in energy saving made a new one the more cost effective choice. Plus, the nice men at the store agreed to deliver it right to my house and carry the old one out and they didn’t even laugh at me when they got the old one in the truck and discovered it was still full of our undies.
Props to those guys, too.
But really, my friend the washing machine…did you have to die just before the holidays? In the season when the kids are wearing layers of clothes? Now that my husband is playing hockey twice a week and hunting? This is just cruel timing. It’s inconvenient. And, frankly, I would rather go without my right pinkie finger than my bestie, The Washer.
I’m serious. I haven’t used that thing since I gave up piano 20-something years ago and I almost never drink tea.
So, pinkies?
Whatev…
What I need is a washing machine.
I called my husband with the sad news and he told me to call a professional. That’s when I really lost it. I started to wail about scheduling those awful appointments where they tell you that they will be there sometime between 7:18am and 6:27pm. Then you have to wait while they order the backordered part and then they have to get you back on the appointment schedule (because they are only in your neck of the woods every other Tuesday in months that have an “r”) and then the part is the wrong one so the whole cycle starts all over again and it is NOT the washing machine cycle which is the only cycle that I am really interested in…
And when I paused to take a breath my husband said, “You can at least call and find out when they can look it over. And if that doesn’t work, maybe your dad can take a look at it”.
Is he the voice of reason in this relationship, or what?
My dad. That guy is all kinds of great things. Like handy, retired, local, and he doesn’t mind being paid with leftover Halloween candy. Plus, I am pretty sure that he remembers lye soap and washboards and I know that he wouldn’t want me to suffer those indignities.
Anyway, I called the 1-800 number and turns out they can put me on the schedule for tomorrow. Sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. The visit will only cost me $69.95 plus parts and labor.
$69.95 plus parts and labor.
Sorta makes pinkies and Halloween candy look viable…
It hit the spin cycle with my husband’s hockey gear tucked inside and then stopped. And then started. And then stopped. It sounded like “The Little Engine That Could” except it was more like, “Chug, chug, chug…Hell, no! Chug, chug, chug…No way! Chug, chug, chug…Give it up!”
Plus, I smelled something that reeked a teensy bit of melted rubber and that is never good.
I am not sure that this family of five can survive without a washing machine. Props to the pioneers for handling it old school with lye soap and washboards but the only kind of “mettle” in this 21st century gal is in one of my teeth. Which is obviously not going to get the laundry done.
Honestly, if I were my washing machine, I would have quit way before now. I mean, just last weekend I loaded up that guy with the fiesta of puke and poo left over from a six-year-old boy’s bout with the stomach flu. Not to mention my husband’s hockey and workout gear. No amount of spinning and rinsing can get the stink off that stuff.
To the machine’s credit, it lasted three years longer than its partner, the dryer. Both were replaced 12 years ago and the dryer pooped out first. We found out that the repair would cost nearly as much as a new dryer, and factoring in advancements in energy saving made a new one the more cost effective choice. Plus, the nice men at the store agreed to deliver it right to my house and carry the old one out and they didn’t even laugh at me when they got the old one in the truck and discovered it was still full of our undies.
Props to those guys, too.
But really, my friend the washing machine…did you have to die just before the holidays? In the season when the kids are wearing layers of clothes? Now that my husband is playing hockey twice a week and hunting? This is just cruel timing. It’s inconvenient. And, frankly, I would rather go without my right pinkie finger than my bestie, The Washer.
I’m serious. I haven’t used that thing since I gave up piano 20-something years ago and I almost never drink tea.
So, pinkies?
Whatev…
What I need is a washing machine.
I called my husband with the sad news and he told me to call a professional. That’s when I really lost it. I started to wail about scheduling those awful appointments where they tell you that they will be there sometime between 7:18am and 6:27pm. Then you have to wait while they order the backordered part and then they have to get you back on the appointment schedule (because they are only in your neck of the woods every other Tuesday in months that have an “r”) and then the part is the wrong one so the whole cycle starts all over again and it is NOT the washing machine cycle which is the only cycle that I am really interested in…
And when I paused to take a breath my husband said, “You can at least call and find out when they can look it over. And if that doesn’t work, maybe your dad can take a look at it”.
Is he the voice of reason in this relationship, or what?
My dad. That guy is all kinds of great things. Like handy, retired, local, and he doesn’t mind being paid with leftover Halloween candy. Plus, I am pretty sure that he remembers lye soap and washboards and I know that he wouldn’t want me to suffer those indignities.
Anyway, I called the 1-800 number and turns out they can put me on the schedule for tomorrow. Sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. The visit will only cost me $69.95 plus parts and labor.
$69.95 plus parts and labor.
Sorta makes pinkies and Halloween candy look viable…
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