I Made My House Cry

I had my laptop balanced on my knees furiously NOT working. I was busy trolling the internet for false eyelashes or any derivative thereof—if you must know!

I had the cable news on low because I’m writing a screenplay with a more political bend and it’s basically research. But these days the 24/7 news cycle has changed from the Russia probe complete with all of the creepy villains with borscht in their teeth and shady as fuck business practices—to the appalling stories of kids being separated from their parents at the border. 

Now usually, I can compartmentalize all of the shenanigans taking place in our nation’s capital, I have to stay sane and write humor after all!  But this—this with the pictures and audios of children wailing for their parents, well, it was too much. It was unignorable. 

I happened to look up right at the end of The Rachel Maddow show because I felt something weird happening. Sure enough, she was breaking down on camera, unable to complete the report that had just broken about small infants and toddlers being set to “tender age” shelters in south Texas. 

Slowly, I shut my computer and proceeded to sob for a good ten minutes. What is happening to my country? What has happened to common decency? Why the cruelty? 

I have tried to keep this “situation” in perspective which has proved to be a Herculean task. After all, what can I do besides send money, sign petitions, call and make the lives of everyone in Washington who thinks this is a good idea—miserable? Just the same, in that moment I felt about as powerless as I’ve ever felt in my life and well, emotions are emotions and sometimes you just need to cry your fucking face off. Especially when you observe the sorry state of affairs unfolding day in and day out in our country without so much as a chance to take a breath.

Afterward, I sat there like a nimrod, checking to make sure I hadn’t cried my lashes down my face and into some no-man’s-land—otherwise known as my cleavage. 

Then I made dinner.

By the time my husband got home the entire incident had gone on the back burner right next to the cauliflower mashed potatoes. He had a particularly spectacular day so we shared a Spanish Rioja and grinned at each other a lot. 

About an hour later I heard a loud humming sound. It was so low decibel it hurt my ears. Was it a low flying plane? Did our air conditioner (which wasn’t on) have bronchitis? Or had the blender finally decided to lead a meditation class with the toaster and the coffeemaker in the pantry? 

So I did what you do when shit like that happens. I muted the TV.

“Can you hear that?” I asked my stubbornly deaf husband who thinks he can hear a pin drop—but couldn’t hear a piano if it were dropped from a ten story building. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “What is it?”

We both got up and walked toward his office where the ceiling had turned into a waterfall. I kid you not. Water was pouring from the ceiling, flooding the concrete (thank god) floor below. 

But at least the humming had stopped.

Right above his office is the attic where our water heater lives. Suspecting that it was the culprit, up a ladder he went and into a cubbyhole he disappeared. I began throwing towels down and putting buckets in place while our dog slept through the entire ordeal. 

“Yep. It’s the water heater.,” he confirmed as he carefully backed his way down the ladder. 

“The intake hose has a leak and the pan underneath which is supposed to drain any water that leaks, well, it isn’t connected either. A double failure at the same time which is rare.”

“How rare?”

“I’ve never seen it before.”

“And what was the weird humming—oh wise one?”

“Dunno.”

Huh. And no big whoop. It was just a hose and a pan thingy. 

Later that night in bed, because I’m me and nothing can ever be accepted at face value, I looked up the meaning of a water leak. The first thing that came up was “emotional turmoil” which I dismissed immediately since things around here, emotionally speaking, are pretty chill. 

Feng Shui says it’s money leaking out but that didn’t feel accurate either. 

Hey…Wait just a minute… 

Hadn’t I been sobbing my head off in despair just an hour before the waterfall appeared?

OMG.  Had I made our house cry?

You be the judge.

Carry on,
xox

Go here if you want to help in some way:
https://togetherrising.org