The title of this blog post comes from the fact that my washing machine decided to start leaking all over my laundry room floor, creating a vile, mildewy smell. Now, the thing is, water is my husband's arch foe. I think he sees water on the floor of the basement and imagines mold, which means a house we'll never be able to sell (when we decide to sell it someday), which means total financial ruin in spite of all we worked for all these years, and ... oh my GOD! I imagine all these tortured thoughts running rapidly through his head because I'm pretty sure it was those thoughts that manifested themselves in a middle-of-the-night turning on of the bedroom light and yelling.
So, I called my BFFs Sears this morning to come repair the washing machine. I call them my BFFs in total and complete sarcasm, because back in April/May/possibly June we had a situation whereupon it was virtually impossible for their appliance delivery service to figure out how to deliver an appliance for me. I swear, it was seriously like they had never done this before, with one misadventure after another as the dishwasher order got lost, a man came to install the dishwasher without it actually being in his truck, an inability to get a refund when we were charged twice, lions laying with lambs, etc.
Anyway, an overly-friendly man who I'm pretty sure was a guy in India using a fake Texas accent scheduled my appointment. (Seriously, I know some Indian call center workers develop fake American accents to fool callers who hate calling India. As I have said before, I have no problem calling India.) The Sears repair guy did come today about halfway through his four-hour arrival window, and fixed our broken water pump in the washer. So although this was ridiculously expensive, it was an overall convenient experience, and it doesn't make for a very interesting blog post.
But then my kid got the worst report ever from preschool, which was just awesome because it was the one time my mom was with me to pick him up. It seems Nathan refused to wear his coat to go outside, despite the fact that all the other kids who wore coats got to pick something out of the treasure chest. His attitude was that he already got several treasure-chest-like items last week in goody bags that overachiever parents brought in for the class Halloween party (I'm paraphrasing here), so he didn't need another treasure. And he fought and he fought, and at one point he lay down on the floor.
And on a side note, he hit another kid with a plastic plate in the toy kitchen.
I was close to tears.
We had a standoff in the park district building just trying to get him to put his coat on to go out the door. It lasted about 30 minutes. Then at home he had a time out for getting in trouble at school, and my mom suggested he practice putting on his coat at the end of the time out. Somehow it transpired that he wouldn't get his lunch until he put on his coat.
This lasted at least an hour.
Finally he put on his coat, all excited and proud of himself, and we had to act like we were all thrilled too, and not that we were still mad that we spent the last 60 minutes of our lives with our entire self-esteem riding on whether or not a 3-year-old would put on a coat.
So anyway, I spent all day with a sort of low-grade, simmering anger.
It doesn't help that in the last 24 hours, I have read three outrageous stories on the Internet:
- Story 1: This woman, Jill, experienced a personal tragedy when her infant son died at 51 days old from a congenital heart defect. It just so happened that he died the day after he was circumcised, so she was harassed by anti-circumcision activists (or "intactivists") who claimed that the circumcision was what killed the boy. They protested at the hospital, and demanded interviews from Jill within 24 hours of her son's death. The badgered the coroner and called for an autopsy to try to prove that circumcision was the cause of death. In general, they turned every parent's nightmare into an even worse nightmare. And here's the thing: even if circumcision had been the cause of the son's death, you need to leave a grieving mother alone. Do you not think that every single mother who has lost a child doesn't partially blame herself, no matter how irrational? And also, are you stupid? The child had a heart defect that decreased his chances of survival from birth. Is that not his obvious cause of death? And finally, I think anti-circumcision activists need to mind their own business and let every parent make the circumcision decision for his or her own child. This is especially important because circumcision has some cultural and religious significance, and when you campaign against circumcision you are not respecting certain people's cultural and religious beliefs/traditions.
- Story 2: This woman, Monica, wrote a story about apple pie recipes on her blog, which was later completely lifted and re-published in Cook's Source magazine without the original author's knowledge. When Monica inquired about possibly getting paid a little something for the article that the magazine plagiarized, the editor responded with a completely condescending e-mail that stated (wrongly) that the entire Internet is public domain, free for the taking. The idiocy on the part of alleged professional journalists is maddening, but even more maddening is that there are people who are so jerky and mean.
- Story 3: This woman, whose name is not stated, allowed her 5-year-old son to dress up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween. When she arrived at her son's preschool at a Christian church, some of the moms gave her a hard time for letting her son dress like that. (Note that none of the kids had a problem with the costume.) These moms are idiots, and I'm just going to let "Daphne's" mom's rebuttal speak for itself: If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.
This little boy, Aidan, is five years old and was recently diagnosed with leukemia. Fearing they would have to sell their house to afford Aidan's treatment, Aidan's parents decided to raise funds by selling Aidan's drawings of monsters on an Etsy shop called Aidan's Monsters. And they have raised enough money selling the drawings to keep the house and pay for Aidan's care! Here is a message from Aidan's family: While the donations and financial support have been an amazing blessing, we would like to especially thank everyone for all of the letters and support. Your words have been uplifting and inspiring to the entire family. Your words and support for Aidan have helped us in ways unimaginable. Aidan has been drawing more than ever, and we do our best to share all of your words with him. Your support has been keeping Aidan's and our family’s spirits up. Again, we sincerely thank you for this.
Faith in humanity: restored ... ?
No comments:
Post a Comment