First world problems

Although I love the suggestion that Wednesday's pictures might have had something to do with not wanting to do dishes, a murder, and then a subsequent forgetting of where the body was buried as well as a mandatory ride in a police car, it was, (un) fortunately, not so. No one was murdered, there were no bodies anywhere, rides in any police vehicle was completely voluntary, and we in fact really wanted to do dishes. Only we couldn't.

Last weekend started off like any other weekend. I made cookies, Ozzie helped, while Jimmie talked his dad into going for a drive*. When Jimmie and husband-dear came home, Jimmie went on to instruct his brother on how to properly color the frosting, while husband-dear poured us a drink. And then it began.

CRASH!!

"What the..?"
A quick trip into the garage told us that the spring on our automatic garage door had just broken. Knowing nothing about springs, garage doors, or anything that doesn't involve a book, a spatula, or running shoes, I looked at husband-dear, who stated, "I can fix that. I just need to get to Lowe's in the morning."

I looked at the CRV parked in the now hermetically sealed garage, "You know I'll need my car to take Zac to tutoring tomorrow."
"It's fine, I can take the truck."

And so we went back into the house, where the boys were now arguing over whether the frosting was grey or vomit-colored, and all was well.

Until the next morning. Because Ozzie had been begging me to make my cinnamon swirl pancakes, and because we are horrible parents who not only give their kids what they want when they want, but feed them sugar in the morning too, husband-dear and I decided to make a big breakfast. He started grilling sausages and frying bacon while I mixed the cinnamom filling. At one point, husband-dear reached under the sink for some wipes, "Oh. My. God."
"What?!"
"This whole cabinet is flooded." He reached in a little further, "Oh crap**"
"What? What?" (I firmly believe in demanding constant exposition, even in real life).
"One of the pipes broke. Get some towels."
Ten towels and a hastily-emptied cabinet later we discovered that the culprit was indeed a broken pipe, but that thanks to my laziness in taking out the tarp that the previous owner had taped to the bottom of the cabinet, the cabinet would live. And fortunately, husband-dear, as the man of the hour, proposed to run to Lowe's "real quick" to pick up more pipe and other plumbing stuff, "I'll just take the truck, if you finish up breakfast."

Happy at having such an all-around husband, I set to mixing the pancake batter and calling out to the stirrings coming from the other side of the house, that we were having a big breakfast.

Ten minutes later, husband-dear reappears, red-faced (through the front door, mind you, remember, our garage door is still not working).
"That is a little quick."
"The truck just died." Husband-dear said ominously, "It's the battery or the fuel pump or I don't know what, because i just fixed all of that."
"I'm sorry."
While usually husband-dear is the pinnacle of calm and relaxed, he was not happy just then. In fact, he was doing a pretty good job chaneling whatever evil spirit usually takes over my body when things don't go my way. And I couldn't blame him. One car stuck in an uncooperative garage, one broken down, again, and a broken pipe that led to an unusable sink and an ever-growing pile of dishes. Because while anyone would have abandoned their endeavor at making breakfast at this point, that is not how we roll at our house. We. Are. Not. Quitters. Come hell or high water or broken pipes, we were going to have cinnamon swirl pancakes. With sausage. And bacon.

But to say the mood in the kitchen was merry and bright when Ozzie made his way in would have been an understatent.
"What's wrong?" The usual non-morning person, non-observant, you-could-put-a-dragon-in-the-kitchen-and-I-will-not-notice-if-it's-before-11, child asked.
After his dad gave him a terse run down of all the stuff that had broken in the past twelve hours, our mini Sheldon Cooper merely shrugged and said, "Eh, first world problems."
When we gave him two blank stares, he continued,"Well, we have running water. We have a car. Three actually, and we have a garage. Those kids in Africa would kill for our problems."

Somehow, that shook both his parents out of their woe-is-us stupor. And so, when the cinnamon swirl mix turned out to have hardened after sitting around while we mopped up water and debated the state of our ancient truck, was put in the microwave, promptly forgotten as one of the pancakes threatened to burn, and exploded all over the inside of said microwave, all while we had no running water in the kitchen, what did we do? We laughed. Because at the end of the day, it could all be fixed. And it was.

And that is the tale of our ridiculous weekend. Well, almost. I shall explain the flags later. And the police car. In the meantime, you just keep on guessing.


*yes, he is that age now. Sigh.
** his words were far more colorful, as they should be when one discovers twp inches of water inside a cabinet at 7:30am, but I'll just keep it PG here.