One of these things is not like the other
I used to love that game ‘One of these things is not like the other.’ I was always so pleased I could pick out the thing that didn’t look like the others. At the time, I wasn’t one hundred percent aware that no matter were I was, I was going to be the thing that didn’t look like the others but I learned that as I grew. A while ago, my childhood friend came to Nashville on a twenty-four hour visit. I took her, like I take all tourists new to Nashville, downtown to Nash Vegas. A strip of four or five blocks filled with clichés of country music honky tonk's and drunken bridesmaids parties, Nash Vegas is a sight to see. We ate in the one non-touristy restaurant I know and then wandered about the strip, dodging large heat saturated groups of out of towners filled with way too much alcohol to be walking about. We took the obligatory photo with Elvis. Strangers accidentally felt us up as we squeezed by, trying to stay on the sidewalk and off the horse and carriage filled street. We wandered into the one Honky Tonk that doesn't make me claustrophobic where we stayed for a song. And there, while listening to a band that was better live than some of the processed crap on the radio, Childhood Friend looked around the room and then leaned over and whispered to me, “Um… everyone looks the same in here.” And they did. All the girls were sporting a pair of cowboy boots, tiny top jeans shorts or tiny skirt and blonde hair and the boys were in a plaid shirt and jeans with embellished pockets, their heads accessorized with a cowboy hat or a trucker hat. I know I’m exaggerating a bit, maybe not everyone was blonde or wore a hat, but the rest was true. The two things that didn’t look like the others in this honky tonk bar in Nash Vegas – well, that would be my little Jewish Childhood Friend and me. Music blasting, crowd moving in a slow two-step, Childhood Friend and I laughed at the circumstance. We were so obviously fish out of water in that Honky Tonk but it wasn’t tragic. We were no longer gripped by the “must fit in” panic that took over us in school. No one was pointing and whispering that our shoes weren’t the right kind of boots or we didn’t have the right hair or jeans. And Childhood Friend and I just made note of the differences we were seeing, went back to listening to music and watching the crowd and let it go. We’ve all evolved, I thought. Childhood Friend and I weren’t trying to be like all the others and the others weren’t trying to make us feel we had to. And then, while we were standing there, a friend of mine sent me a text from Nantucket where she was summering as a nanny. One week in and she’d already been called the N word and the child she was caring for was called a ‘retard. And bam, I was right back in grade school, being asked if I wore clothes when I was in Africa while the kids laughed and pointed at my hair. For so much of my life, I’ve wanted to fit in. I’ve wanted to not be noticed. I’ve wanted to not be different. I’ve tried to be blonde and only turned my hair to an awful straw burnt orange. I’ve tried to be silly and funny when cruel things were said instead of weeping like I was inside. I’ve kept my mouth shut when I knew speaking out would make a wave. I did not want to be different. It’s hard not to be different here in Nashville. We are, Husband and I, always the odd one in the crowd. We do not look like the others here. He’s got his accent and I, apparently, am Robin Roberts. But I have found that being different is a good thing in a place where everyone is rotating and out of town in to follow a dream. Husband and I are remembered. And, it not always just because I look different and he sounds funny. Sometimes it’s because it we are us. Like the dude in the pizza place who knows us as “The Questionnaire and the Scotsman!” This is an unfinished ramble. I don’t have a real point to make here or a real ending. I guess it is good to be different if you are okay with it. If not, your differences make your life and everyone else miserable. There are mean people who can’t handle difference and there are people who celebrate it, honor it even. Don’t be miserable. Life is too short and there is too much to see and do. Babblebabblebabble... Celebrate your weird!
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I feel like all my posts of late have been about the plumbing situation at our house. But that’s how it is when I’m off the internet, Husband’s been sick and water backed up all over the basement floor. We have nothing else to talk about. We lead such an exciting life. Plumber dudes came out yesterday morning to fix the broken pipes and run a camera up and down the whole system to see if we had more issues. Thankfully they arrived after I’d showered because the first thing they did was take apart the broken connector pipe from the toilet/shower section. Where they found this:
By the time I got home, the Plumbers were gone and Husband was starting to fill in the hole, I job I wanted to finish since I’d done most of the work emptying it. Nice guy that Husband is, he stopped so I could. This morning, while contemplating my stupidity at volunteering to fill in the hole, I spotted our twin deer in their napping spot in the backyard, on the other side of the yard from the offending pipe. While watching them, I had this deep thought: You are never far from beauty and you are never far from shit. It is just how you choose to see the picture.
I’m putting that on a greeting card. Maybe, I'll just put the picture of the clogged pipes on the outside and the inside will have this picture and the writing will just say: Squint. Maybe I should just go shower. This will be a short post. I hurt everywhere. I hurt in places I didn’t know could hurt – like my fingernails. My hands hurt from grabbing and pulling and scooping. My back and I aren’t speaking. I even hurt in my toes from doing a weird crouch stance to keep from falling into the hole.
The sewer drain I was volunteered by Husband to dig out turned out to be 12ft long and full of rocks not 6ft as I’d first thought. (No penis joke necessary, Mom) Also it isn’t just one pipe that is broken, it is the two pipes AND the connector pipe that joins all the pipes and then leads to the city sewer system. Not a good thing to find. I started digging at 8:30am and quit at 4:25pm with about an hour in there where I supervised a move of the stupid Foyer Fridge to the garage. Husband came home from work and joined me in the digging and continued for an hour after I quit. He did the digging around the connections but I’m still taking credit for most of the work. While I was digging, I focused on what could be worse to get myself through the dig. I can’t remember most of the list, the exhaustion has me fuddled, but I remember some. The obvious ones are; I could have been a Palestine child in Gaza, Christian in Iraq, and a female where they still practice FGM. I could be in the middle of Ebola outbreak. You get the idea, lots of other things that suck worse than digging a hole in my back yard. Lots of really awful things are happening all over the world that beat my little plumbing issue. Lots. But the more immediate ones that could have been worse that affect me in my little world: · It was only 82° with 50% humidity when it could've been 100° with 100% humidity · The drain and subsequent digging could have been in the sun instead of under the trees. Granted it was the trees and their damn roots that made the digging necessary but this is an ‘It Could Be Worse’ list not a ‘Who’s Fault Is It?’ list. · It could have been raining. · It could have been snowing and could have been ground is solid dirt instead of dry, chunky dirt covered by rocks. · I only got bit five times by something that stung and then burned. I suspect they were fire ants – safari ants we called them in Kenya. Whatever it was, it could have been a nest of them and I would currently be in the hospital from the pain of the sting and from having knocked myself unconscious by freaking out and hitting the stinging spot. · I could have been digging the pit for an outside toilet instead of trying to fix an indoor plumbing situation. I love indoor plumbing. My grandfather’s farm in Kenya had outdoor toilets. I was always afraid I’d fall in and drown in doo-doo. · It was only the kitchen drain that was broken so the smell was mild. It wasn’t until Husband got there and we unearthed the connection to the toilet/shower sewer section that we learned it was also broken. Thankfully, the roots had pretty much sealed the crack so the smell was minimum and we can still flush and shower. Yay! I’m sure there’s more but I can’t type anymore. Suffice to say, I have a good life even when I have to dig. But I will never accept an assignment like this one again. Also, some plumbers are worth the $$$ they get paid. So are wives like me. The highlight of Sunday was not the point where I found myself lying flat on the ground with my arm down a sewer pipe. And yet, that lovely moment led to me starting Monday with a 7am call to several plumbers before finding one that would come out to the house and not charge me $50 to “Take a look and decide what needs doing.”
Caleb, the plumber, came on time to evaluate the clogged pipe situation. We stood in the backyard chatting about this and that; mostly about the weather and how this is 100% humidity is mild for a Tennessee summer. He looked at the drain, very nicely listened to me explain in my highly technical terms about the “whatchamacallit” not draining and that we used the “snake thingy to try to unclog it but that there were all sorts of roots and stuff” that I couldn’t pull out. He quoted a price of $$$ that was only slightly eyebrow rising. “Let me call my husband.” I said. But Husband didn’t answer. So I gave Plumber Caleb the go ahead and went back inside. All was good for about ten minutes. Plumber Caleb was getting his stuff out of his truck and I was inside in the air conditioning pretending to clean the house. And then I got the panic phone call from husband “Stop him!” $$$ was too much for the job. “I’ll just get a snake from the store and do it myself.” he said. I hate husband at times like this. Like when he tells me to call someone to do something and I do and then I have to be the one to go outside and break up with the poor guy who has already hauled his heavy stuff off his truck and down our very steep hill to the smelly sewer pipe. Plumber Caleb didn’t take it well. I told him it wasn’t him. It was husband. He still looked like I’d kicked his puppy. What followed was about twenty minutes of awkward standing about while he loaded his truck up, wrote up an estimate to do the work “Once Mr. Husband has decided he wants our help.” Plumber Caleb then filled in the paperwork I needed to sign saying I’d rejected him and all he had to offer. Breaking up sucks. Not being able to wash the loads of dishes sucks. Humidity that makes you always feel like you’re in a sauna sucks. I decided a shower was necessary to restore my mood because at least the shower/toilet sewer section wasn’t clogged. Midway through my showering off the sweat and rejection, the dog started barking. I wrapped towels around my hair and myself and went to see whom it was. A friend had sent me a box of goodies that Mr. Postman brought to the door. Tigger the Dog was going mental. When I peered around the hallway to tell him to leave it outside, my towel fell off. It was at this point that I realized that I’d cut the back of my ankle shaving and had left a trail down the hallway. Thankfully, Mr. Postman didn’t get a look at anything good though he's got a story to tell over the mail sort today. And he still left Tigger the Dog a treat despite me screaming at him repeatedly, “SORRY, I CAN’T COME TO THE DOOR.” as I fumbled my towel back into place and hobbled down the hallway trying to keep my bloody foot off the floor all while as Tigger the Dog barked her head off. Joy. Hours later, I came home to husband and two new plumbers digging out the offending drain. Wanting no part of his shenanigans, I went inside only to be told that he’d volunteered me to dig out the rest of the drain before they came back to fix it today. He wasn’t joking. Husband volunteered me to dig out a section of dirt about six wide by four deep in the 100 % humidity because he didn’t like Plumber Caleb’s quote for $$$. I was the one who had to do the breaking up and now I was the one who was going to have to do the digging? Ugh. I have to go outside now and dig. I am not thrilled at the prospect but I’m choosing to look for the silver lining here. It’s hard to find a silver lining when I know I’ll literally be knee deep in mud in minutes but here goes: ONE: The New Plumbers broke the pipe to get to the clog – which was the plan when they figured they couldn’t get the snake to the clog. They managed to get the roots out and the roots had only clogged up about two feet of pipe not the possible fifty feet they could have. TWO: Fifty feet would have been thousands and thousands of dollars to dig. I would have had to fly home to California to avoid getting volunteered for that job. THREE: While I’m digging, I’m sure to get more exercise than I normally would on an average Tuesday. And, it rained last night so I won’t need the pick ax. And, when the shovel and my boots become solid with mud, I will have weights challenging my every move. And, when I sweat because of the humidity and then wipe my face with my muddy glove, it will be like one of those expensive mud baths and mud facials that I’ll be getting for free. FOUR: Because they got the roots out, I was able to wash both loads of dishes that have been sitting dirty since last Wednesday. FIVE: It was not the toilet sewer section. It was the dishwasher poop free section. SIX: I think we have finally established that Husband is his own being and that he will be the one to hire and break up with all folk he wants or doesn’t want to work on the house. I have fired myself from that duty forever. SEVEN: I have one more thing to add to the list of things Husband owes me for. Of course, his list is likely to be longer… This might just make us even. Sigh. EIGHT: Even is good. NINE: Okay, now I'm just stalling. Off I go. Did you know it is very hard and totally not healthy to have a screaming argument with your spouse at 4am in the morning?
Particularly when they are sick and still actively sleeping while you’re having the argument. The yelling at them silently in your head will only keep you awake and only raise your blood pressure. Yesterday morning, I was so mad with Husband, I had to leave the room to not fight with him and his sick snoring self. All of this stemming from the fact that I was sure he had not showered his feverish sweat covered body before bed like I’d requested he do several times. When I woke up at 3:30am to use the bathroom and spotted his towel on the hook, I made the assumption that he hadn’t showered and my brain exploded. The middle of the night is not a time for logical thought. And making assumptions while not wearing glasses is even worse. Eyes squinting and apparent right on my side, I launched myself into a fury that could not be squashed, as my sleeping Husband was not awake to fight with me. I lay there, fuming for hours before huffing myself out of bed only to get even pissier while unsuccessfully trying to nap on the couch. By the time Husband woke up, I was at five-alarm bitch. As soon as his foot hit the floor of the den, I launched my attack. And yes, as I screamed out “You didn’t shower after I asked you to do so repeatedly.” in response to his “How are you sweetie?” I realized that I not only sounded crazy, I actually was crazy. Brother thinks I go crazy in August. He might have a point. Husband did what any sane person would do in his situation and laughed in my face. That made things worse. I got madder. He laughed harder. Finally, after far too long, he admitted he had showered and had put his towel on the hook to mess with me. Ass. Now I was pissed he was being a Richard on purpose. This went on for most of the day; I was grumpy, bitchy and rude, Husband was amused. It was not an enjoyable day in the least. And then we tried to fix the blocked sewer pipe. I’m not sure if it was at the point my body was splayed across the ground, my arm up to its elbow in tree roots and shit… or if it was after, when I was standing in the shower for the second time trying to get the stench off me… but somewhere in there, I lost my mad. The thing is, it’s hard to keep your mad when it’s 80 degrees, your face is inches away from a stinky pipe and you’re working as a team to fix a basic need like being able to wash dishes without the water backing out the pipe all over the basement floor. My tiny hands were perfect for sliding into the poop filled tube and try to pull out the roots. Husband was the perfect person to cheer me on and then hold the watering can as I tried to clean off whatever. Together, we didn’t fix the plumbing problem but we did manage to fix my mad. Or it disappeared with the muck down the shower drain during my second and more hazardous waste like decontamination shower of the day. Either way, I liked Husband again and he was still amused by me. Win win. There really is no end to this story. As Husband would say, Angelina Jolie will play the part of me in the movie version. All I know is, getting mad at your spouse in the wee hours of the morning is not the best thing to do. But having to clean out a sewer drain is even worse. That and you might not want to shake either of my hands for a while. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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