Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I think my laundry room might be haunted

So as you can tell I really haven't been delivering on either of my resolutions for 2011. Unless you count posting once a month as "more regularly" or if sitting at my computer can count as "exercising at least 3 times a week". Oh well, as usual I will shoot to do a little better.

It's kind of imperative I get going on the exercise regime as soon as possible since in the last 3 weeks I have had to retire 2 pairs of jeans. I was still able to wear both of them somewhat comfortably (a big thank you to whoever came up with the genius idea of adding spandex to denim. A marriage made in heaven for those of us in our 40's!). Although I could button & zip them up, I had been noticing that they were getting a bit snug around the upper thigh & derriere. In the end it was my keister that did them in. Apparently the task of stretching over my ever-widening tuckus was such a strain that the fabric just plum wore out. The first pair ripped as I was sitting down to play a game with the kids. I could have chalked that up to shoddy workmanship except for the fact that about a week later (while wearing a different pair) my daughter pointed out that she could clearly see my underwear through the holes in the bottom of my jeans. Hmm...it's probably a little past time to get myself under control again.

But before heading down to see what special kind of pain Jillian Michaels can inflict upon me today, I thought I'd share a little bit of the craziness that has been the House of Crackers over the past couple of weeks.

I'll start with Valentine's Day. This is a somewhat meaningless holiday as I seemed to have married a man (who just like my father) feels that it is a made-up/phony holiday created for the sole purpose of selling cards and flowers. And while I may agree with their opinion, I still like getting flowers from time to time & don't begrudge the floral industry their chance to make some money while at the same time delivering beautiful spring blooms to my doorstep.

But since flowers have not made an appearance in my house for many years, I choose to think of Valentine's Day in a different light...the day before my birthday. Having a birthday the day after Valentine's Day served me well in the years before I met my husband as in "Who cares that I don't have a Valentine, tomorrow I'll get presents & cake!". And it has served me well in the years after I was married when it was decided that we wouldn't celebrate the holiday anymore since we were long past the wooing stage.

Anyhoo, as I was saying I really had no expectations for Valentines Day beyond the fact that I would be helping out with my daughter's Valentine's Day party in the morning. Except for that small diversion, the day was looking like any other Monday. At least it was until C found the last tiny bit of ice left on the driveway and promptly fell down right as my neighbor arrived to drive him school.

He promptly screamed and clutched his left arm to his chest. He's a pretty tough kid, so as soon as I looked at the pain in his eyes, I got my daughter into the carpool van and then took him inside to assess the damage. Since I have no medical degree, my assessment didn't take very long, and my conclusion was simple. A trip to the doctor's office was in our immediate future. So instead of attending the Valentine's Party for my daughter's Early 5's class, I spent the morning in our doctor's office and then in our local Childrens' Hospital X-ray facility where we discovered that C had indeed broken his wrist.

I'm happy to report that it was a minor fracture and that it was splinted and he was able to return to school in time for his second grade class Valentine's Party. Thank goodness! He's still upset over the fact that he missed the class Christmas party because of an ear infection.

Sadly though, Valentine's Day wasn't quite done with me yet. Later that evening I was upstairs talking with Mr. Crackers on the phone when I heard what can only be described as a giant crash coming from downstairs. Knowing that C was down there alone with his newly broken arm put me in a tizzy. I frantically hung up on Mr. Crackers and ran down the stairs two at a time. Visions of him pinned under a large piece of furniture began running through my brain. When I ran into the kitchen, I was relieved to see him standing there looking at a magazine. He looked up at my panicked expression and simply said, "It wasn't me."

I did a quick scan & found nothing out of the ordinary in the kitchen and family rooms, so I headed toward the laudry room since it is adjacent to the kichen. It's a tiny room, really more of a hallway that links the garage to the kitchen than an actual room, but I figured I'd check and make sure everything was A-OK. But as soon as I started to open the door my nostrils were assaulted by the smell of alcohol. Lots of alcohol. My laundry room smelled like a distillery, and for some reason I couldn't seem to get the door open all the way. That's when I looked down and saw the 3" layer of broken glass all over the floor.

Apparently the noise I heard was one of the laundry room cabinets -- the one that held all the laundry detergent and most of our crystal vases along with a few bottles of alcohol -- falling off the wall and spilling its contents all over our tiny laundry room. Sincerely, forget the fact that it was Valentine's Day, this was shaping up as one of my worst Mondays in recent memory.

Once I called Mr. Crackers back to tell him what had happened (it turns out that screaming "Oh my God what was that!" Followed by "I have to hang up now!" is not the best way to end a conversation with a spouse who is making his way home in rush hour traffic.) I began to pick up the million pieces of glass that now carpeted the floor. Mr. Crackers walked in the door about 20 minutes later just as I swept up the last of the glass and helped clean up the rest of the mess. We were both happy that no one got hurt and that we didn't really loose anything that we really needed. In the words of Mr. Crackers, "We never used those crystal vases for anything anyway." Truer (and more depressing) words have never been spoken.

Thankfully, I'm happy to report that the rest of the day passed uneventfully. True to form, my birthday was great and filled with more than enough good stuff to make up for my lackluster Valentine's the previous day. It was a wonderful day that included both presents and cake as well as chocolate fondue. Trust me, the chocolate fondue was so good I completely forgot about the laundry room accident. At least temporarily.

We haven't had the time yet to fix the laundry room yet, so all of my detergent, dryer sheets and other laundry stuff has been living in a large plastic tote on top of the dryer. Since all of us were down to our last remaining pairs of clean underwear, it was time for me to do a little laundry yesterday. So I took the detergent out of the tote and placed it on the dryer so it was easier for me to access as I began my weekly laundry marathon. I put the second load into the washer & left the room to finish making lunch. When I left the laundry room the detergent bottle was on the dryer -- but when I came back 45 minutes later to change loads, the bottle had fallen off the dryer and the floor was now covered with bright blue Cheer laundry detergent. It's like there's a poltergeist living in my laundry room.

Seriously I don't know how else to explain that the bottle fell and manged to spill its entire contents (96 loads worth of detergent if the label can be believed) on to the floor. The bottle was completely empty. Not a drop left. I can't empty the bottle that well when I'm trying to squeeze out the last little bit. Clearly someone doesn't want me in the laundry room anymore (I mean someone besides me).

I'm still working on the laundry and I a little afraid to see what happens next. I just hope whatever it is doesn't ruin any of my jeans. Only a truly evil spirit would force me to go jean shopping before I can shed a little of the extra padding I've put on over the past few months.