Hey, this is my place. Grab a seat and relax for a bit. If you are expecting deep philosophical blather you are going to be dissappointed. You have been warned as some of the opinions discussed on this blog are the opinions of the owner and may or may not align with your own.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

A Christmas to forget

Christmas is a time for family, friends, and giving. So why was ours everything but? I don't know who we wronged but someone was not happy with us. Not only were we trying to deal with the whole water pouring through the ceiling fiasco I commented on in my last blog entry, we were also trying in vain to pull off a X-mas holiday. It just was not going to happen. My wife took the kids up to her parents place the week prior to the holiday weekend so as not to expose them any more to the "dry out" process that was happening around the clock at our house. I was left alone in the house to deal with the contractors, the mess, and the NOISE!!!! For three straight days it sounded like there was a 747 taking off and landing in the kitchen. If you tried to go downstairs to what I like to call my Fortress of Solitude, you were hit with the sounds of a jet engine. Try going upstairs to escape the noise...and boom planes flying in the bedroom too. On each floor of our house we had dehumidifiers the size of refrigerators and no less that 6 industrial size blowers on high speed trying to dry out the carpet, sub floor, walls, hardwood floor, and ceiling tiles that had taken a beating on that fateful night that the toilet wasn't going to take anymore and attacked. Three days of constant noise....personally I would rather have shoved broken shards of glass into my eye than listen to that noise. There was a wind chill in my house for cryin out load from the 20 mph wind gusts. Imagine this chaos while your trying to work from home taking conference calls and such all the while it sounds like you are in the middle of a war zone. Sleeping was fun those nights...NOT!

Eventually the contractors came and pulled their hell machines out of the house....the beauty of silence was something like I had never heard. I sat in the living room and just listened to the sound of nothing and for a brief moment found peace in the quiet of my home. That night I actually slept and I was able to get some work done the next day.

I was missing my family pretty bad as it was nearing the holiday weekend and we had plans to do the family things toward the end of that week. None of those plans would come to pass now since they had traveled to her folks place to escape said Hell House. The hell with the house had passed and we were in good shape..until the brainless weather people started calling for nasty weather the latter half of the week. Of course I didn't want my wife and kids to travel in nasty weather conditions so we delayed their homecoming to see what the weather did. Thursday turned into Friday which gave way to Saturday and the weather didn't do shit as record temps were hit and rain fell from the sky....no freezing, no snow, no wind chill, nothing. I could predict the weather better than these yahoos. My wife and kids started for home Saturday morning..we wasted 2 days waiting for the sky to open up and nothing. Damn weatherman. To top it all off, the time my family spent up at my in-laws was just enough time for all three of them to get sick. My wife informed me of this while in transit on Saturday. Headed my way was a truck full of disease. This was going to be a great weekend.

Have you ever tried to navigate a full blown family holiday with two sick kids under the age of 3 and a sick wife that when she coughs sounds as though she is barfing up a lung? Let me tell you..if ever faced with that situation...punt. I don't care if it's 1st and 10 on the opposing teams 20 yard line....you punt and run away screaming like a little girl. Hell hath no fury like a sleep deprived 2.5 year old with pneumonia. My daughter who normally is a well behaved little angel was spitting pea soup and speaking in tongue. I never thought that I would see the day that a child would get pissed off and throw a shoe for being asked to open one of her presents. Each one we would present her with would cause her to scream in an octave that shattered both glass and the human ear drum. It was the 20 minute hell on earth tantrum that caused my wife and I to throw in the towel and cancel the remainder of Dec 25th and by the way it was only 11 am. I left my sisters place with my truck full of sick people..me the only survivor of the plague. We arrived home went through a few more melt downs and finally put the kids down for naps...of which did them some good..but only a little as my daughter slapped us back to reality with a post nap pea soup and tongue episode.

Christmas night was upon us.....we had planned to be at my cousins place with the rest of the family opening gifts, snacking on hors d'oerves, drinking a few cocktails, and eating x-mas cookies. Instead, my wife and I were calling around trying to find a Chinese restaurant that was open to order some food from as we were starving and didn't have anything in the house except for baby food. I felt like Ralphie's father after the Bumpkiss's dogs ransacked the turkey dinner in TNT's 24 hours of "A Christmas Story" only difference is they found a Chinese place..and we weren't as lucky.

Well...I guess there is always next year....if I make it that long.

Seriously though...the one bright part in this is that I spent time with my wife and kids....sickness, tantrums, coughing, barfing up lungs...at least they were home (insert the token awwwww).

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year! Don't Drink and Drive. Don't do Drugs. Call your Mother once a week. Alright..I'll stop with the PSA's..although I was serious about the drinking and driving thing..oh and the drug stuff too.

2 comments:

Jason said...

So . . . have you recovered yet?

Mike said...

The last of the contractors has left the building. We have our house back.....