A Comdey of Errors

{This blog was begun on January 21...not finished until February 1. Took me awhile to be able to get it all down. You'll see why when you finish. Be warned, its long, funny and just another day in MolliWorld!}

I came home yesterday from a truly relaxing, wonderful interlude in Florida.

I spent time with my husband, who has been working away from home for far too long.

I napped. A lot.

I watched the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. I took pictures of the sunrise and sunset with my nifty, new camera.

I spent time walking the beach.

I spent time just sitting on the beach. A lot.

I ate seafood.

In short, it was, for me, a perfect vacation. Time spent with my husband, who is my favorite human on the planet. Plenty of solitude and time to reflect.

But, as all things do, this came to an end. I had to fly home (and I've told you before that I don't like to fly).I had fairly rough flights coming home, but I made it to Huntsvillle International without throwing up or anything too humiliating.

I landed, collected my bags and found my car in the parking lot. This was going very well. I opened my Jeep, deposited my bags and closed the back end. Got in the drivers seat, turned the key and BINGO! She started. More goodness. I found the ticket to pay for my parking and headed home.

Could things be any better than this?

Oh...Molli. You really are a smart girl. Why, oh why do you ask such silly questions?

I had managed to park in the wrong place. 4 nights of parking cost me (are you sitting down?) $112! One hundred and twelve of my hard earned dollars. I can't tell you how many people offered to take me to the airport and pick me up. I didn't want to inconvenience anyone, because I had to be there at 4:30 am. Let me just say this: Next time...prepare to be inconvenienced, my friends. $112! That would buy a gadget for my camera!

So, I call Rocket Man and listen to him pop an aneurism about the $112 as I'm driving home.

I pull up into the driveway and call the umpteen people who felt it necessary to know that I got home okay (and I adore each of you for your concern). I noticed that my leaves were raked and piled up in the yard for the city to come and vacuum up. I was very pleased that this task had been accomplished in my absence by my precious daughter, amazing son-in-law and I'm guessing one of my grandsons.

{An aside, but very important to the story} We were quite tardy in getting to the leaves this year. There was the small matter of me having back surgery in the early fall, and raking was out of the question for me. Then, we had a launch to attend and then Rocket Man kept going to and staying in Florida. Christmas came and went and we still had leaves in the yard. I'm not supposed to rake, and I think that means for the rest of my life.

Don't forget about the leaves. It is an important part of this story. There was a wall of leaves about 3 feet high and about 4-6 feet deep across my entire front yard. Lots of leaves. Lots. Piled perfectly where they were supposed to be, according to the city. Remember, lots of leaves.

I went in and put my stuff away. Let the cheeky dogs in and they were so happy to see me. I went up and down the stairs a few times, before I heard this noise. More than a drip...less than Niagra Falls.

Uh-oh!

Went into the downstairs bathroom to find the shower going. More than a drip...less than Niagra. I turned the knob and nothing changed. Turned the knob the other way and the nothing changed. This is NOT good. I kept turning until it came on full force, thinking that if I could get it on, I could get it off. I am not the Rocket Engineer in our household. I hadn't stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before. My plan didn't work.

I called Rocket Man, who is still popping the aneurism over the money, and now the University of Memphis Basketball game (they lost their first conference game in about a zillion years or something...it was a big deal and I was interrupting THAT with a problem that he could do nothing about...Mars and Venus stuff at its best here).

Called our friend, Larry, who lives up the street. Can I just say God Bless Larry Mayo about a million times? He is such a dear friend, and I would say that even if he wasn't always having to come to my rescue. I am jazzed that he answers my phone calls. I'm always calling him in a panic about something. I know he has caller ID.

Anyway, Larry came and took a look-see. We called Rocket Man and had a big pow-wow about stopping the water. They decided that we needed to go to the water shut off valve and turn the water off. All the water. I'm wondering about a shower in the morning, but they assured me if would only be until Larry could do something to the something which would cause something else and the outcome would be good. I know a little about jet propulsion. I know nothing about plumbing.

Only one, little, teeny, tiny problem. Its as dark as the inside of a cow outside and the shut off for the water is *somewhere* in the front yard...under a mountain of wet, freshly raked leaves.

All 4 feet and 11 inches of me lost my sense of humor. I was tired. I had flown in bad weather. I wanted to be back at the beach. I wanted Rocket Man. I wanted the cheeky dogs to shut up. And so I did what seemed reasonable to me. I got a rake and started raking.

We called Rocket Man, who said that the shut off was about 12 feet from the storm drain toward the dogwood tree. It was not. I raked and raked. Larry kept asking me to hand him the rake, but I had my 'lean into the wind' very righteous attitude on and I was no way! no how! handing him the rake.

Larry: Mollianne, please give me the rake. You'll hurt your back
Me: I hope so
Larry: Ed said that the shut off ought to be right here
Me: I guess that the Rocket Genius doesn't know everything, does he?
Larry: Are you mad at Ed?
Me: I am mad at the world, but I can't be mad at you because I don't know how to turn off the dadburn water and you do, so just let me rake!
Larry: I'm going home to get a rake
Me: Oh, for goodness sake...there are more rakes in the garage. Help yourself.

We raked about 15 yards of leaves into the street before we found the blasted shut off. I knew that they had to be raked back in the yard, because I've had this fight with the city before and I know that I won't win. I hate fights that I know I'm not going to win. While Larry went home to get washers, because we couldn't find them in our garage, which looks like a ground zero...I raked the leaves back into the yard.

Larry goes into the bathroom with his toolbox in hand. He does the something, something, something. He comes out and tells me that he's going to turn the water back on and I shouldn't hear a thing. I'm all good with that.

Larry goes out and all of the sudden, I hear the water running. We have hit the Niagra Falls part of the scale.

Larry hollered: What's happening.
Me: You don't wanna know.
Larry: (as he walks into the bathroom) This is physically impossible.
Me: Feel free to shower in the impossible.

So, Larry the kind, the precious, the friend of the year turned off the water...again...and did something else, something, something. This time, it worked.

Oh, and the part about me not raking.

One week later, I'm having pretty good back spasms. My leg and hip are killing me. Like they did BEFORE I had surgery. I had to go to the doctor, confess my sins and be scheduled for a procedure that included the words 'injection' and 'spine' in the same sentence. Actually, the doctor had warned me that this was a possibility even if I hadn't raked. But I think (don't tell Rocket Man or Larry this, though) that the raking didn't help. The injections helped a great deal. At least, so far.

I have learned several things. I have promises to make. Here they are:

I promise to hand over the rake, should I ever be foolish enough to pick one up in anger, to Larry, Rocket Man or any of you who are bigger than me and man enough to ask me for it while I'm in a fit of rage.

I promise to either pay attention to where I'm parking at the airport, or go ahead and inconvenience the heck out of my friends and let them drop me off at 4:30 in the morning and pick me up at 8:30 at night.

I promise to try, Try, TRY to control the anger that takes my 4 foot, 11 inch frame and makes me into a gargantuan mega-Molli. Its just not very becoming.

It really is funny, looking back. And, the whole procedure with the needles and injection...thats a story for another day.