Too Dire For Duct Tape

Have you ever had one of those days?  You’re heading to the gym for the first time since Richard Simmons discovered spandex when you pull a small thread at the top of your pants, inadvertently unraveling the entire elastic waistband (and no, not your midlife-crisis sweat pants but your brand new WOW-these-are-criminally-expensive-but-I-DO-need-to-look-fitnessy-and-if-I-don’t-feed-the-kids-this-month-I-can-probably-afford-them yoga pants).

So you find a safety pin for that quick diaper fix you hope will hold everything in place cuz’ you’re already late for ‘hot flash yoga’, which you’ve so maturely renamed it since questioning your own sanity for enrolling in an intro class at age 50, when you hastily impale your forefinger on the pin, causing you to wonder how such intense, excruciating pain can radiate from such a teeny-tiny body part.  Then as you reach for a Band Aid, you smear blood across the front of your fresh white t-shirt, giving you that unmistakable yoga look that screams “SWEET JESUS, I’M HIT!” before you’ve even struck your first pose.  You frantically rinse the spot under warm water only to find you’ve spread the stain even further, making you feel a bit like a limp hemophiliac anyway and ensuring that any downward-dog you may attempt later will probably, at best, look more like a put-the-poor-doggie-down in the end.

This chain of events only loosely describes the domino effect that has gripped our household since the odorous start to our New Year.  After the toxic mess from a burst sewer stack meandered its way from our second floor bathroom down to the basement, we’ve had countless plumbers, insurance adjusters, contractors, environmental testers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers all traipsing through our house trying to assess the extent of the damage.  It all seemed like a pretty straightforward ceiling and floor repair to us until our plaster samples came back laden with asbestos.

That’s right boys … set up a perimeter; we’re goin’ in.

Like any self-respecting construction estimate, ours just quadrupled.  Sometime over the next week, our house will be taken over by spacemen in hazmat suits (that’s “hazardous material” suits for those who missed ET) who’ll be smashing out walls, ripping up floors, tearing down ceilings and generally making a big, stinking, lung cancer-inducing mess.

On the upside, we’ll be on an exciting family adventure living in a much smaller short-term condo rental!  Even though the kids will be sharing a bedroom, will be miles from their school and distanced from most of their friends for the foreseeable future, I’m sure this experience will make each and every one of us appreciate our home that much more, with tighter quarters bringing us closer together as a family!

If we all don’t kill each other first.