My house alarm has a light that won't go off. This light indicates a low battery. The low battery signals the alarm to let ME know that it is low in battery and needs replacement. This indicator sounds like a smoke detector alert--beep beep beep beep. On top of that, the alarm company keeps getting alerts from my system saying there's a problem, so they keep calling me with a recording telling me about the problem. Phone calls every half hour, beeping every thirty seconds.
Finally, the alarm company comes out to fix it. Only for it to start beeping again. The alarm company comes back out again to fix it. This time, it sounds like the alarm tech is calling someone in China from a loud touch-tone phone--beep beep beep beep boop boop beep beep boop beep...he's in my living room at the entry of my home beeping and booping, and that went on for three hours straight until he finally realized the outlet the alarm was using didn't have a constant charge and was thus triggering the alert. If that had been my only problem--but let's..
Add to that, my oldest son makes a comment about a boy at school who's kind of a jerk. He even did a foot plant off my son's back. My son is new to his school, in for about a week since we transferred him there, and I'm a little ticked that some punk is messing with my baby. I'm agitated now, wanting to save my son from Lumpy and wanting to pant-chuck the alarm guy out my front door (I know it's not his fault, he's trying to help, but beeeeeeeeep!!!)
Add to THAT...in my functional skills program I have just been told I'm getting a new student. He's a teenage boy who's been suspended twenty (20) times for hitting a teacher. Hoo-RAY...I feel for the parents, I really really do, but C-R-A-P...crap. The unknown of what is to be my fate begins to fill me with dread. I want to quit my job, karate chop Lumpy, and punch the alarm system flat...
Add to that my younger son. He has five hundred pages of math that he doesn't understand. I can't teach him math. He's an artist, I'm an analyzer...we don't mix well learning together. It's obvious to me what to do, it's like reading Chinese for him. I want to tear the math book with my teeth, quit my job, do a clothes line on Lumpy, and let the robbers come take what they want from my house.
Add to that--I'm standing in my kitchen looking for dinner, trying to tune out beep boop boop beep just feet from me, my sons in crises of their own, and they both look up and say, "Mom, why is there a crack in our ceiling?" I look up to find a pressure crack coming towards my face above my head. I'm looking at the bottom of my bathroom from upstairs, the exact place where my tub and shower are. I get on a chair to touch it, see what it does. Crumble into my hand, so now I have a 3-4" hold in my ceiling. Terrific. I get online to my home owner's insurance. I call in to make a claim. In the meantime I wondering who's life should I risk to empty the dishwasher because that is exactly where the bathroom will drop if it so chooses.
My stomach is churning...beep beep beep...Kindsay comes in, "Mom! Why is the ceiling cracking? Is it going to break? What is for dinner? What are you making?" I feel defeated so I tell her she can make dinner. "I don't know how. You know how, you make it." I will tell you what to do, I calmly tell her. Having seen this girl in action, I know what she is capable of. The box of mashed potatoes she made at midnight one night and left untouched, the frozen lasagnas she bakes when I tell her I don't have dinner planned, the millions of boxes of mac n cheese she's cooked...and on and on. I give her step by step for making shepherd's pie. She cooks the meat, the mashed potatoes, stirs, sprinkles, mixes, fills the pan, oven on...then as she is setting the pan in the oven she moves her hand up too high and burns it on the top burner. And of course, it's my fault. "Mom! Look what you made me do! If you had just cooked dinner I would not have burnt myself!" I grab cold water, flour, you name it to get some relief to her. The burn is white on her skin. Instead of dipping it in cold water or flour, she starts peeling the burned skin back and exposing the raw skin. Now she's really in pain and letting the world know. Beep beep boop boop all along.
Between the hole in my ceiling, my boys' personal crises, the singed skin...If I hear "Mom" again, I'm changing my name. Then my oldest calls--
MOM...I'm coming home! I'm done!...sobbing in my ear. At that moment my husband comes home to find Wife of the Year with all the fun to myself for the last two hours--"Waaaaaa! Mom burned my hand!" "Dad! Dad! Look at the hole Mom put in the ceiling!" "How come I have all this homework and no one else does! Not fair!" Beep beeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
I sit in my lounger, blank expression. Daughter packing her car to come home, daughter peeling her burned skin, son with friend I need to beat up, other son with inability to do math and pass...I'm imagining the relief I may get if my new student just punches me out clean. My husband assesses the status of the house, and after five minutes--"Wow, that beeping is annoying. I'm ready for that to end." He didn't earn the darts coming out of my eyes, but he got them.
If only I used curse words. I'd have my own censor to bleep out my words...until 6:00 P.M. that is, when three hours later the alarm guy finally just unplugged the dang system and left.
