August 28, 2013

The Day I Lost My Mind (Updated!)

Out to breakfast!
I cannot believe I forgot the other craptastic thing that happened this week. See credit card debacle, below.

Write it down, people. August 28, 2013: The day I officially lost my mind. Let me explain.

Two weeks ago, Jeff decided to get sick. Like spent the entire weekend and better part of a week in bed sick. I reacted to this illness as any loving wife would: by getting totally irritated and planning an upcoming girls' weekend away. One course of antibiotics later, Jeff is back on his feet. Mostly.

Last week, we had a new kitchen floor installed. Our old cheap tile was pretty beat up and I wanted a nice, cushy, cork floor. The floor was installed Thursday and Friday. I was very stressed about this because Moe has ABA at home all day and I wasn't sure how we would keep him out of the house for that long. But with one community outing (see photo) and some creativity, we got through it.

Saturday, we planned to celebrate my book club's ten year anniversary. We had a big party at a friend's
Gorgeous, right?
house, and all the families were invited. In an attempt to allow Jeff some time to mingle and not spend the whole time chasing Moe, we brought our nanny to help. It was great, but Moe just wanted to jump into the (unfenced) pool. There were several near-misses. We did have the foresight to take 2 cars, so after a couple hours, Jeff took Moe and the nanny home.

The rest of the weekend was good, and included cheering our friend who ran in (and won!) the first annual Milton Friedman marathon, and a ride on a steam train.

This week was slated to be a busy one that included: a big job interview for me, back to school night for Jelly, Moe's IEP, and our eighth wedding anniversary. We planned to go out and get a babysitter and everything.

So what happened? Moe and I both got sick. Fever, chills, the whole bit. Jeff is sick too, still or again, we're not really sure. We've both got coughs. We canceled our anniversary dinner and I went to bed before 9. I had to reschedule my interview today.

Stuck at home, I checked my email and saw a credit card bill. I checked it, and it was larger than expected, which was odd since I knew I just paid it. Turns out that somehow I transposed some of the account numbers on my bill pay account (which is weird because I've been paying this credit card the same way for months, but that's a mystery for another time). Because the numbers I used were actually someone else's credit card number, I paid some random person's credit card. Lucky them!

This turned out to be a tricky thing to fix. As far as the bank was concerned, the money was gone. As far as the credit card company was concerned, it went to a legitimate account. Anyway, after several back and forth calls, I was able to get the information I needed, and within 24 hours, the issue was fixed. They even credited me back the late fee and interest charges! I apologize to the person who thought they had a benefactor paying their credit card.

But wait. There's more. Remember those beautiful floors? Well, today I smelled something funny. I looked alongside the fridge where I could see the one thing that is really bad for cork: water. That's right, kids, the refrigerator was leaking.

*insert expletives of choice here*

I immediately start texting Jeff who comes home and moves the refrigerator out. We sop up the mess and I decide I should get a fan to dry things out a bit more.

Fueled by adrenaline and cold pills, I made my first stop: Rite Aid. Their seasonal aisle was mid-transition to fall. I mean, it's August and 85 degrees out, so of course I'm ready to buy hay covered pumpkins. But they did have this:

Also available in chicken
Next stop: Home Depot. Veeerrrry long story short involving a new employee (who thought that the website said they had 101 in stock but that was really the number of reviews of the fan), they didn't have any fans.

At this point I was not going to make Jelly's back to school night and I was having flashbacks to the infamous laundry soap search of 2011. Jeff suggested Fry's (which to his credit he suggested initially) so off I went to that retail hell hole, where there was a huge display of fans right in the center of the store. Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Which brings us to now. The corner behind the fridge is pretty messed up. Turns out that even though our contract stated that the homeowners would disconnect and reconnect the line to the fridge, the very nice floor installer guy did it. And why would we pull the fridge out when everything was working? But he didn't test it. If he had tested it, we would have noticed a small pinhole in the copper pipe that has been leaking water at a slow but steady rate for 5 days.

Five days. That's all it took for us to ruin our floor. Five days.

This is why we don't have nice things.

8 comments:

  1. Oh Jen......I am so very sorry. *mind blown*

    ReplyDelete
  2. And that is why QA is the most important part of any production release. :)

    I am sorry to hear about the floor too.

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  3. Whoa. Well, when it leaks, it pours. Amiright? Hope you are all feeling better soon xo

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  4. Sorty, I don't understand, if the nice, cushy cork floor is not supposed to get wet, why is it in the kitchen. My kitchen floor is constantly getting spilled on.

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    Replies
    1. Because cork floors are soft and have some give - ideal in an area where you are on your feet for long periods. The tiles are sealed, and they can get wet. But, like other types of flooring, they should not have standing water on them for long periods of time.

      But thanks for your understanding and compassion.

      Delete

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