We are a family who seems to have a lot of…issues. Sometimes they can be really big, but most are just little, niggling, annoying problems that serve to make life difficult.
DISCLAIMER: Whenever I write a post like this, someone e-mails me or comments to tell me about how I don’t know how lucky I am, and I could have this problem or that problem, and I should be grateful, etc, etc. So let me just say right now that I AM THANKFUL for my blessings. But here’s the thing people….life isn’t always a bowl of cherries. Problems are still problems, big or small, and I write about them because it’s therapeutic for me. This is my blog – if you don’t like what I write, get your own blog).
At the beginning of every year, I tell my husband, “This year is going to be better.” At the end of every year, after we’ve been followed by disaster for 12 months, I ask, “What else could possibly happen to us?”
NOTE: You should never say that out loud. If you do, 10 more bad things will inevitably happen. Clearly this is what I’ve been doing wrong.
In my post, The Crap Family Chronicles, I explained a little joke between my husband and me. It started because of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year we had in 2007. At a time of particular frustration, after yet another situation had gone hopelessly wrong, I blurted, “Well this is just TYPICAL, on account of us being the CRAP FAMILY and all!” and then promptly burst into tears. Since then, whenever something bad happens to us, we always look at each other and say, “Well, this is another episode of “The Crap Family Chronicles.”
As always, the 2008 holiday season provided several episodes for the Chronicles. On Thanksgiving Day, when all of our family was here for dinner, I lit some scented candles to make our house smell fragrant and inviting. One was a paper-wrapped votive called a “luminary lantern,” made by a company called Avid.
We were all sitting around, chatting after dinner, when we smelled something burning. My husband ran into the bedroom and found this:
You know how ordinary candles just flicker out when all of the wax is consumed? Well Avid Luminary Lanterns don’t. No, they just keep right on burning until the wafer-thin glass gets blisteringly hot. Then, the decorative, handmade, paper wrapping catches fire, leaving an unsightly, charred ring on one’s 1930s mirror-topped vanity.
There are two lessons to be learned here:
1) Never leave a candle (of any kind) unattended.
2) Don’t buy Avid Luminary Lanterns.
(That’s Avid Luminary Lanterns, New Paltz, NY)
On Christmas Eve, it snowed heavily (as always). We have only one close neighbor here, and we share a driveway, which is as long as a city block. Fortunately, our neighbor has a truck with a snow blade attached. We allow him to store it in our back building, and in return, he cleans off the driveway each time it snows.
The kids and I were happily baking cookies, with Christmas carols playing on the radio, when our neighbor came to the door to give us this little tidbit of rotten news:
That’s right. He hit our fence.
Now, I understand that accidents happen. I really do. I would not have been half as angry if this same neighbor hadn’t already hit our house with his snowblower. Twice.
(He also lets his dog poop in our yard, despite our numerous requests that he keep the dog chained. But that’s a whole other episode).
Our neighbor did promise to pay for the fence repairs, and fortunately he didn’t crack either of the posts that are cemented into the ground. When we came home from visiting my husband’s family on Christmas weekend, he had attempted to neaten up the mess with twine:
I just hope this isn’t his idea of “fixing” it.
Now, most people would be really upset by these things. I know, because I used to let this kind of thing bother me for days. I would get angry, and cry, and wonder aloud about why, oh why must this kind of stuff always happen to US? Now, I still get mad for about a day, or sometimes even less. Then, I move on to resigned acceptance. It’s almost like I just expect that bad things will happen, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s just our lot in life.
We are The Crap Family, after all.
