Musings of a Housemom on Universal Truth
Feb 14 '06
The Bottom Line Despite the onslaught of daily chaos, life at home is fulfilling and ideal!
I believe there are certain universal truths that occur at maddeningly regular intervals. For instance, my telephone rings and a very important person named “Stan” tells me that I have been chosen as a finalist in a million-dollar drawing with a consolation prize of a five day all-inclusive stay in Las Vegas — all I have to do is provide the airfare and a “handling fee”. (Congratulations!) At this point my children will sprout halos and sit as silent as termites for the full fifty minutes it takes the caller to extol the virtues of a small magazine subscription to Hedgehogs Today that will “offset the cost of the promotion.”
If the phone rings, however, and it is the pediatrician’s nurse finally returning the call I made seven years ago regarding the somewhat alarming rash on my infant’s neck, the scenario will be completely different. As the word “Hello” escapes my lips, shrieks that make dogs howl will erupt around the house and I will immediately be instructed loudly that “Bad guys comin’, Mommy — hide!”
Another truth is that the second I purchase a vehicle and the shiny new tires hit the filth of the service road, thus immediately subtracting 40% of its value, all of Detroit will hold a press conference announcing that there will be a new body style for the 2038 model (coming out next month) and that this year’s model will be rendered as re-sellable as a Hurricane Katrina car.
There is the obvious, “if you wash your car it will rain” truth that applies to most people but doesn’t work in droughts. And if you are driving across town, you will pass 235 Starbucks. This is not really a problem truth, and this article wasn’t supposed to be about my addiction anyway so I’ll move on . . ..
There is the absolute truth that if you purchase an article of clothing for a child, the child in question will actually grow larger as you walk out of the mall but you won’t notice said growth until you have removed the tags and washed the garment. All of these are regular, run-of-the-mill situations that I am used to and can deal with, but I had no idea what new and horrible truths lay in store for me when we purchased a home.
Mr. Murphy has been lurking about my new home for the past month, waving his law with reckless abandon. He is chucking new universal truths, quite literally, from the woodwork. Such as: If you have beautiful woodwork in only one room of your home, that is precisely where the microscopic hole in the wall, accessible only to raindrops, will be. Also, if you have a cleaning company pre-clean your home for your move-in, as part of their service, they will shatter your glass shower door.
Feeling like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom as the handyman “Yups” and “Nopes” her into thousands of dollars in repairs on her home, I watched Murphy spring a leak in our upstairs bathroom, spraying water sitcom-style in a geyser as my children slipped feet-up on the floor and my husband raced for the shut-off valve. Fortunately though, Murphy thought to have the water seep down and saturate all of our newly moved-in belongings in the garage below.
Also, if you have an existing electric cook top and you would like a gas one, it will cost you roughly the GNP of Liechtenstein to run a new gas line. You will also need a new countertop because they don’t make “huge models like that” anymore and the hole is too big for the new one. P.S., the installer doesn’t do countertops!
Fortunately, the best universal truth to come out of this is that if you live in the movie Money Pit long enough, you learn how to become the Fixit Family and start to handle crises much better. I am positive that I can now tile a floor, rebuild a toilet, replace appliances and counters and grout a backsplash as well as Bob Vila (or, maybe close…). So in our new, beautiful home, with my beautiful family around me, I expect to see a little less of Mr. Murphy in the future. Actually, I think that is him running from the kids. I think they’re yelling “Bad guys comin’ -- hide!”
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Epinions.com ID:
marysmom
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Location: Highland Village, Texas, USA
Reviews written: 14
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