Out of town = guaranteed mishaps

As many of my military wife friends can attest, when your husband leaves town, things happen. Weird things. Things that never happen any other time. 


My garage door went up half way one day and stuck. It was as if my house had kidnapped me and we couldn't leave until our landlord arrived to fix it. Staple-gate 2012 happened. Delays and mishaps happen in the adoption process but our agency had never seen anything like this one. Our smallest dog rolled in ahem...something very pungent, and then routed around on my living room carpet. So gross and I just wanted to bleach it all..including the dog. I was gagging so hard my eyes were watering the entire time I bathed her. A toilet back-up of all toilet back-ups happened just yesterday..and again I gagged.


Today I got a two-fer. I had to get up early and take my 6 month old car into the dealership. The brake system warning light appeared on my dash (of my new car) this weekend...multiple times. It would light up then go out with no rhyme or reason (on my new car). Today was also my regular doctor appointment down in Mobile and I needed to have it checked before driving 2.5 hours away (in my reliable, no mechanical problems possible, new car). 


In the end, the dealership checked it, found that it's just a sensor and will fix it when the part comes in. They expect it to arrive tomorrow and the way today went, I'm betting that means next Monday. At least I can drive it in the meantime.


I ran by the post office, got stuff for breakfast for the boys, and ran home just in time to get them up and dressed. This was all by 8:45am. 


I wanted to leave by 9:30 so I could take the boys to a sitter for the day. As we were packing up their stuff, I asked Matt to put the dogs into their kennels. 


He suddenly appeared in the garage (where I was oh so patiently waiting and not yelling at him to hurry up....ahem..) and he said "MOM Murphy brought a bird into his kennel!" 


I asked him to repeat this because..well, I had an appointment to get to and I didn't have time for a freaking bird in the kennel. I came in to check and sure enough, there was a youngish bird, injured, oozing stuff I'd rather not think about, and chirping for it's life. It was injured and every time it chirped, Murphy would pick it up and mouth it, then drop it back to the floor. 


Nathan's eyes were as big as saucers, Matthew was giggling/asking me what to do, and I was asking HIM what to do (I swear I need mom of the year award). Our two little dogs wanted so badly to get into that kennel and get the bird. Murphy kept looking at me as if to say "what..see this bird I got..isn't it cool?" 


We kenneled the little dogs and got Murphy outside. I got a shovel from the garage (it was that or tongs and well, I didn't want bird bleck on my kitchen tongs). I scooped up the bird...chirping the whole time, and headed for the garage door. 


The injured, oozing, nearly gone bird hopped off of the shovel and started to hop away from me on the kitchen floor. I actually thought about how ridiculous this entire thing was while I chased the bird across the kitchen with the shovel. Somewhere in the back of my mind I imagined telling this story to Andy and knew that he'd find it humorous..which meant I was now mad at him for laughing (and yes I know he hadn't laughed YET, but he did, trust me).


Nathan's eyes were bigger and bigger. I loudly calmly instructed Nathan to get into the car and buckle..and not to move. I ran out of the house with the bird on the shovel, tossed it into the bushes knowing it was not long for this world, put the shovel away, and got into the car to leave. Nathan asked what I'd done with the bird and I told him the bird would be looking for its mother. 


Ho-ly cow. 


Life is never dull around here and fortunately, the mishaps are never anything life altering. But when you find yourself chasing an injured bird across your kitchen with a shovel, irritated that your husband will laugh, yelling at your kids to get in the new car that has to have repairs done...you know your husband is indeed, out of town.