Friday, June 20, 2014

Ten Things Of Thankful, All Rolled Up Into One

I cannot see the digital clock in our bedroom at night for two main reasons: 

(1) rather than putting them away, my husband piles his clean clothes on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, which then blocks my view of the clock; and
(2) even when there is no pile of clothes, I would have to squint too hard to make out the time, and it's just not worth the effort.

Therefore, I pick up my cellphone in the night to check the time, rather than rely on the digital clock that I can't see.

I woke up about 5:45 as the room brightened with the morning sun and then dozed off again until about 6:30, when I heard my husband say, "There's no power."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"The clock is off." I can't see it. "And the fan isn't on anymore." It's pointed at him, not me.

"Well, that sucks," I said, reaching for my phone and reporting the outage on the electric company's website as Fletcher jumped on the bed and laid down on top of me, pressing against my very full bladder. My husband got up and looked out the window, trying to gauge whether our neighbors were out of power as well (impossible to tell, as it was broad daylight already). 

My bladder couldn't take it anymore, so I pushed the cat off and was availing myself of the facilities when the phone rang. Now, the handy thing about being married to a former funeral director is having a phone in the bathroom, and I went ahead and answered it, figuring it was the electric company. And it was. 

"Have you checked your main circuit breaker?" asked the perky voice on the other end of the line.

"Um, no," I answered.

"Because this is the first report we have had of an outage in your area. Could you go check it and the one outside? I'll wait on the line."

This put me in an awkward situation, as I was still, uh, relieving my bladder and couldn't leave the room at that very moment, and it wasn't until THIS VERY MINUTE that I realize I should have sent my HUSBAND to check the breaker, given my situation. But I set down the phone and quickly finished what I was doing. (PEEING. I WAS PEEING.) As I passed my husband, who, now that I think about it, was just sitting in the recliner in our bedroom, watching me scurry out of the bathroom and put on a pair of shoes, he started to hand me the cordless phone to take with me. Which doesn't work when the power is out. (This was his contribution to the entire debacle, I might add, other than to wake me up to tell me we had no power.) 

I walked down the hallway to the stairs and stopped short at the alarm pad. 

"Will I be able to turn this off with no power?" I called down the hall.

"I don't know," was the reply from the recliner.

I punched in the code. Instead of turning off, the alarm beeped rapidly. Loudly. I said a bad word (or three) and punched it in again, figuring I had nothing to lose at this point, and the beeping stopped. I went down the stairs and down the hallway to the top of the basement stairs and flipped on the light. 

No power. Duh.

We've had about 50 flashlights come and go from the cabinet just inside the kitchen over the years, so it was a crapshoot as to whether or not one would be there when I reached inside, but I was rewarded with a flashlight when I opened the cabinet door. The bad news was that it was the wind-up kind, so I had to wind it up before it would come on.

Wind it again before I got to the bottom of the stairs.

Wind it again as I picked my way through the laundry baskets that are only in the way when it's dark and you're trying to get to the breaker box.

Wind it again as I shone it on the breaker box, seeing nothing that looked like a flipped breaker.

Wind it one last time as I navigated through the laundry baskets again and up the stairs.

Next, I had to go outside IN MY PAJAMAS and check the box at the back of the house, which I didn't even know existed. Which I may or may not have checked, because I never really determined what it was, but I was able to rule out the cable box and the telephone box.

Inside the house again, I went up stairs, down the hall, across the bedroom, and into the bathroom, where the telephone receiver was dangling next to the toilet. Ms. Perky Voice was patiently waiting as I told her the breakers were FINE. She promised to send out a crew and that was that.

My husband took a shower and left for work, remarking it was going to be a FUN morning when the kids got up and found out there was not only no power, but there was no internet, as the router would not work without electricity. Swell.

I used up nearly all my battery power on both my phone and Nook playing Candy Crush (worth it - finally beat level 374) before it was time for me to brave it and take a tepid shower before leaving to get a haircut. 

With only the light coming in the bathroom window, I put my hair up in a messy bun, ignored the wanky bangs that I would have rectified had I had POWER and could have used my straightener, and applied make up that looked pretty fine from the bathroom but later found made me look more like a raccoon than I would care to admit when I got outside and saw it in the daylight in the rearview mirror. 

Naturally, just as I finished getting myself as presentable as I possibly could and was leaving the house with just enough time to get to the salon, the power came on. Too little, too late.

Because I'd sucked up most of the battery playing the ever important games of Candy Crush, the first thing I did when I got in the car (AFTER checking my clown make up) was plug my phone into the charger. Or I WOULD have, if the charger had been there. I checked my purse. No charger. Checked inside the console. No charger. Checked the other car. No charger. Unlocked the door and went back in the house. No charger. Locked the door and returned to the car. Checked the trunk. No charger. Opened the backdoor. The charger was in the backseat, under a shopping bag, and I have no explanation for that.

Finally on the road to the hair appointment, I suddenly realized I forgot to get some cash from my little stash (it's very small, so don't even CONSIDER robbing me for it; it would not be worth the jail time). I dug through my purse, knowing I had dropped some cash in there the day before when I took my daughter for a haircut, hoping I hadn't used it all. Naturally, when you WANT a traffic light to turn red, you get green lights all the way, but eventually, I caught a red light and was able to stop and rummage through my purse, coming up exactly $10 short. No problem, though, because my bank has an ATM that isn't too terribly far out of the way, so I swung the car around and headed there. But as I approached the drive-up ATM, my way was blocked by a Brinks armored truck and two men servicing the machine. For real. The next closest ATM was over a mile past the hair salon, which would make it a sure thing I would be late for my appointment. I took one last-ditch effort to look for money and pulled out some one dollar bills. Ten of them, as a matter of fact, and now I could proceed to the hairdresser's. 

I was on time, skinning into the parking lot at 9:14 for my 9:15 appointment.

My hairdresser said the picture I found depicting a haircut I wanted was one that actually would work on my hair. (A nice change of pace, since the cuts I find are usually met with words to the effect of, "I could CUT it that way, but it would never look like that because your hair is thick and curly and the model's hair is thin and straight.")




And that, my friends, is worth TEN things of thankful right there.

The End.

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59 comments:

  1. OH MY GAWD... Lizzi just asked on vid chat why anyone would entertain the idea of wanting a phone in the bathroom!!!! Amazing the serendipity in this little crew of bloggers...

    GREAT HAIR!

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    1. I was thinking the same thing Zoe!
      And yes, Dyanne. Most excellent hairs on the head!

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    2. We wouldn't have one there if my husband hadn't worked as a funeral director, but it is quite handy sometimes.

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    3. It was SO funny when Zoe told us you'd just written that... :D

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    4. yeah! what the hell… what are the odds. so that raises the question of what the 'British' do for funerals and such… clearly their funeral directors are not always available.

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    5. Apparently, in England, everyone dies between 9 and 5 when the funeral director is sitting at the mortuary :) In America, it's in the middle of the night, during an ice storm, or when you're in the bathroom!

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  2. Love your hair and other then the electricity going out could so relate, because my husband totally piles his clothes on the ottoman at the foot of the bed so that I can't read the time on the cable box either and usually have to use my phone to see the time at night, as well!

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    1. Thank you for understanding my pain! The only problem with checking my phone for the time is that I get distracted if I see a notification and have to go check those as well....

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  3. Cute hair! Bad way to start the day, but the hair redeems the whole lost morning.

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    1. Thank you! I think I cut about 6 inches of hair and it feels FABULOUS.

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  4. Ack. Reminds me of the time when the electricity at my place went off AND the bathroom flooded at the same time. Had to deal with that, and two yapping doggies! Phew! Have a great weekend, now!

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  5. Zoe beat me! Lizzi will flip when she reads about your bathroom telephone!
    Your hair looks great!

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    1. She will. Was saying the same to Zoe. Weird how these things go, eh? lol

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    2. Thank you, Christine! Denise, it's too bad I was feeling crappy last night and didn't get on video chat. I could have fully defended having a phone in the bathroom!

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    3. No time like the present - YOU WERE TALKING TO A STRANGER WHILST PEEING! What on EARTH could induce you to want to do that?

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    4. I was already PEEING when the phone rang!

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  6. Is your middle name "entertainment"? lol
    Nice post Dyanne. The phone thing in the br's a bit weird but came in handy didn't it!

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    1. YES! It's on my birth certificate! :)
      Thank you! And if you can pee quietly, no one even knows you're in the bathroom....

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  7. This story is wonderful!!! I noticed you had sunglasses hiding the raccoon eyes. May I slap your hubby upside the head?

    Val

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    1. I can't believe it took me until I was writing about this to realize he did NOTHING. Smh!

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  8. Quite the morning you had, but the haircut looks great!

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    1. Thanks, Kristi! And I didn't have to write my hairdresser an IOU for my haircut!

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  9. My what a morning! Awesome hair :)

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    1. Thanks! It was even better when I paid for my cut with mostly $1 bills, like a stripper.

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  10. You look beautiful.

    I'm glad you found money and got power back. And beat your level on Candy Crush (the *most* important thing, ofc)

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    1. Aw, shucks! Thanks!
      The candy crush win was definitely the highlight of the morning.

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  11. Fantastic story. And why is it that boys do just exactly that sort of thing (or things) (or lack of things)??? I can't see the clock in our room, either, for precisely the same reasons. Well, that and I'm pretty much blind until about 10AM every day, but that's another story. It's true, really - the truth is more bizarre than any fiction.
    Nice haircut! Glad to know I'm not the only one who showers before going to the salon...

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    1. What is it about boys?! HE can see, so it doesn't occur to him that he's blocking MY view.
      I've gone to her long enough that I don't have to "fix" my hair before I go, which is good, because with no power, it wasn't going to happen. Plus, I had seen her the day before when I took my daughter there for a cut, so she at least saw it un-slept on then!

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  12. (in some properties that I have listed, I have at times, needed to turn the circuit breakers off in order of the power to be switched on)…and I can never keep it straight 'flip the switch towards OFF or switch it so it covers the 'OFF' indicator.

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    1. We get a squirrel in the transformer a couple of times a year, which knocks out our power plus the next door neighbor and a house back behind us through the woods. Checking the stupid breakers was really unnecessary; we ALL knew what happened.

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  13. Would you be offended if I said I feel like I just watched and Abbott & Costello film...."Who's on first?" Yeah, that feeling. However, your hair looks fantastic!!
    Why would a funeral director need a phone in the bathroom? Just wondering.....

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    1. That would pretty much sum up my life, Sandy.
      There's a phone in the bathroom because people rarely die when you're in a convenient place to take the call.

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  14. LOVE your new haircut and um, WTF about you running around doing the power thing? I'd totally have made the hubs do it. But well, I'm lazy and would have been sucked into Candy Crush. By the way - back up your phone to the cloud. When I had to get a new phone, after dropping mine in the toilet for the second time, I lost like 200 levels of Candy Crush. And those past ones suck doing again, I think.

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    1. What was I thinking? I wasn't, obviously! My guess is he just sat there, watching it play out, waiting to see if I would figure out that he was just SITTING THERE. Took me 12 hours to do so. Gotta go back up my phone now....

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  15. Oh my- this is hilarious!!! And I felt SO bad for you pretty much the entire way through this crazy story!! My favorite part is envisioning you going PAST your hubs and racing around doing all of this while he sat in the recliner. Nice. LOL

    Your hair looks AWESOME!!!! And SO glad you dug up ten more bucks in that purse of yours!

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    1. The whole thing was just wrong.
      And thank you! I'm glad I found $10, too, because trying to figure out how much I was going to have to get from the ATM to end up with a $10 bill was just too much for me.

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  16. Ohhh, mornings like that are NOT fun. Glad it all turned out well though! Your hair looks great!

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  17. What you just said! All's well that ends well! Love that haircut! Great look on YOU!
    love, jean xox

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    1. It should have been such a simple thing to wake up and go get a haircut....

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  18. Oh my this made me laugh! Your husband just sitting there and letting you do all the work - well you answered the phone didn't you? So it was your job, wasn't it? That's man-logic, I think.
    Your hair looks great! All worth it. Hope you have power back now.

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    1. You're right, Yvonne, it was all because I was the one who answered the phone! And I answered it because I was sitting right next to it, peeing!

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  19. This whole post had me rolling in laughter. I have heard candy crush is so addictive you'd use up the last juice of battery when you're in a power outage just to beat a level, and now I know it is true! :-)

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    1. I did the same thing two weeks ago during a power outage at my parents' house (storm knocked out the power that time, and no one made me go outside to check the breaker box!). I wrote a haiku tribute to candy crush in the A to Z Challenge :)

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  20. THIS POST IS HYSTERICAL! hahahahaha bathroom answering the phone- been there. the pile of cloths- just the thought is pissing me off at my husband the hair cut photo....just all of it! love it.

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    1. Thanks, Kerry! Comedy of errors. At least I got a good haircut out of the whole thing!

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  21. Your hair looks fab and I am still processing the phone-in-the-bathroom-for-funeral-calls thing.

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    1. Thank you and when the nursing home or the hospital or coroner call the funeral director that they have a body for removal, the funeral director cannot be sitting in the bathroom, um, meditating, when the phone is ringing in the other room. THAT'S why.

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  22. Oh my gosh - your hair looks FABULOUS! And this post cracked me up. It was Lucy and Ricky-ish and I loved every word. I hope you are swinging that gorgeous cut all over the place this week!

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    1. Thank you! Trying to get used to having so much less hair. And my husband calls me Lucy sometimes. Wonder why...?

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  23. My husband sleeps with the clock on his bedside table too. But I keep my phone, with alarm set somewhere near me in bed. Your hair looks great. I'm do in later this week. I should try a new look, too.

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    1. I have a little alarm clock next to the bed that is long on cute and short on reliability, and I can't see it at night anyway, so I finally learned to rely on my phone and the alarm on it.
      I don't know why I wait so long to do something when I know my hair needs a do-over. I feel 10 lbs. lighter!

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  24. I'm a little late making my rounds but I finally made it :) ... Great hair. I just hate it when the power goes out in the summer months. How come the guys get the fans pointed at them? Life isn't fair sometimes.

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