By: Jennifer Richardson Holt
Last week I wrote about the idea of luck. It was my thirteenth anniversary, and there were several other appearances of the number thirteen (along with a substantially sized black cat) that I analyzed to have had no negative impact on the life I lead. I talked about how I didn’t believe in luck, good or bad.
I still don’t believe in luck.
But let me tell you, this has been quite a week.
The stage had been set when my husband was out of town on a business trip last week. Firstly, the day he left, he set off and I took my daughter to school, and everything was normal. However, when I returned home after work and school, suddenly the garage door could not lift higher than about two feet.
This was frustrating, obviously, but not the end of the world. I figured once my husband, who can very literally fix anything, got home, he’d sort it out. It was a minor inconvenience, and I tried not to let my feathers overly ruffle.
Then, also while he was away, the repair people from the furniture place came to replace a part of our sectional sofa. They arrived and couldn’t get the couch apart, so they had to reschedule to try again the following week.
Well, that’s a tad tedious, but fair enough.
When my husband got home, he had the couch apart in roughly thirty seconds, so clearly it wasn’t as complicated as the furniture fellows had thought. But that’s just fine. That means when they return the following week, they can get everything sorted.
Back to the adventure with the garage door.
My husband had found a company that had local technicians it would send out to make repairs. This guy said he’d be there on Friday. The time he said he was coming came and went, and then suddenly he wouldn’t be able to make it and would have to come on Monday.
Monday was a very similar scenario, with fruitless promises of someone being on their way, yet no repairmen in sight, due to the very in-depth and professional reason we were given of, “Something came up.”
My husband told them they had one more chance or he was making the repair himself.
We’ve made it to Tuesday, and lo and behold, a repairman finally arrives.
Now, mind you, he was several hours late and threw out prices that were so high they made the stratosphere look like basement-level. When my beloved informed him of his lunacy, he immediately cut his price by two thirds.
Sir?
SIR!
You should not remotely be able to reduce your price by THAT much.
Well, that is, of course, unless you were trying to scalp me to begin with, which was very clearly the case. He still scalped us, but he left a thin layer of skull rather than full decapitation.
I apologize for the graphic nature of that metaphor, but it was appropriate to the graphic nature of which we were robbed.
Then we return to the saga of our furniture.
The ridiculously kind gentlemen come on their rescheduled day and are happy to hear that the specific piece of couch is now sufficiently easy to remove and they shouldn’t have any issues with it. They proceed to lower the back of the truck to take out the replacement piece.
It was at this point that the questions started.
He began disconcertingly inquiring if I was replacing one type of chair with another. I assured him that what we were supposed to be getting was an exact replacement of what we had, so nothing should be different.
We examine the chair.
It is not even close to the correct piece.
Mind you, this piece had to be custom made with our chosen upholstery and to our specifications.
Which also means, you guessed it, we shall have to wait another vast span of time for the correct one to be created.
I shall also throw in that we were going on an overnight outing as a late anniversary trip this weekend to watch the big kickoff weekend of college football.
Yes, I know it has already started technically, but OUR team wasn’t playing yet, and we’re going to see OUR team.
But, of course, our scheduled pet/house sitter canceled at the last minute, so now we have to make the drive back home after the game.
Not the end of the world, but far from ideal.
I still absolutely do not believe that this is some outpouring of bad luck. My black cat crosses my path every day and has done so for the more than six years that I have had him.
Not every week is like this.
The old saying is, “When it rains, it pours.”
And while not always, it is often very true. I guess it’s just monsoon season at my house.
But thankfully, seasons pass.
Sometimes they linger far too long or hit far too hard (as anyone who has longed for the end of the Southern summer knows), but they do pass.
Eventually, the clouds will break.
I am praying that they’re nearing empty, though, because goodness gracious…
it’s getting deep around here!
Prose and Possibilities 