Adventures in Home Ownership

It all started a couple of weeks ago.

Redneck and I came back from running errands and he pushed the garage door opener button. The door went up about 8 inches, then stopped.

He did this a couple of times before I decided that he didn't know what he was doing and took the remote away from him. Amazingly, it did not work any better for me.

I went in through the front door and looked into the garage. What I saw was the cables from the garage door draped over the garbage cans in graceful coils. What Redneck saw was the torsion spring over the garage door had snapped. Then I saw dollar signs dancing in front of my eyes from how much it was going to cost to get that fixed.

Between the two of us, we heaved the garage door up (they weigh about 400 pounds for a two-car garage door) and he stood there like a statue while I backed my car out.

It went on the list. Fix garage door.

On Friday evening, I decided to get some laundry done before Redneck came over after work. I threw everything in and wandered off to do something else. A few minutes later, I tuned back into the washer because it was making a funny noise. Crap. It was still working, but didn't sound right.

It was added to my mental list while the wet stuff went into the dryer.

Redneck came in a little while later and we left to get something to eat. When we came back, I was walking through the kitchen and saw a puddle of water on the hardwood floor. I immediately knew what had happened. I screeched and grabbed towels and dropped them on the floor.

Redneck came running and saw the problem too.

The water supply that feeds the ice maker and water-in-the-door on the fridge had broken.

Crap.

We pulled the fridge away from the wall and started mopping up the mess. He turned the water off at the wall and disconnected everything so it wouldn't keep dripping on the floor. We mopped some more. We found Speedbump's 4367 scrunchies that keep disappearing. (She LOVES to play with them, especially fetch, if you shoot it for her.)

After all the water was off the floor, we took a good look at it. Not good.

The next day, Redneck headed to Lowe's to get copper line to replace the broken plastic line. I headed for the phone to call the floor dude.

The floor dude said that he would come over on Tuesday and look at the floor. I called my dad and he said he would meet the floor dude here and see what he had to say.

The floor dude was here yesterday and said that he'd give it about three months because sometimes the flooring will dry out and the floor will go back to the way it was supposed to be. The polyurethane was not stripped off, so if the floor would cooperate, it might be ok if we did nothing. If it's not ok in three months, then we'd look at replacing the warped sections. Call your insurance company and let them know that you might have a claim in three months.

Dad and floor dude finished up and headed out. Dad locked the front door behind himself. Then he turned around and locked the deadbolt. (Dad's a big believer in security and locking locks that were meant to be locked. Me, not so much. I'm lazy and usually have to pee in a hurry when I get home so I just lock the doorknob.)

I got home later than usual last night so it was dark. It was also freezing cold. And I had to pee.

I knew that the damn deadbolt would be locked, so I unlocked the doorknob and then spent precious minutes playing hunt-and-poke with the key, trying to get it into the deadbolt. I finally got the key in there and tried to turn it. Nothing. Ok, maybe it goes the other way. It turned, but did not unlock the deadbolt.

By now, I'm whimpering with cold and pee, and dropped my bags and purse on the front porch to seriously wrestle with the stupid key. It. Would. Not. Turn.

I left everything on the porch and headed for the back door, praying that I had not locked the screen door, but thinking I probably had.

I had.

Thinking fast, I headed down the steps from the deck, dragging one of the patio chairs with me.

Rockboy is not known for his diligence in home security and I was hoping this was one of those times. Oh PLEASE let his window be unlocked.

I shoved the chair up against the house and climbed up, praying the whole time: for the window to be open, to not pee my pants, to not break my body when I launched through the window. . .

It was unlocked.

I pushed the window up, chased Speedbump away from the open window and dropped into the room with the grace of a drunk koala bear. Slammed the window closed and ran as fast as I could with my legs pressed together for the bathroom.

It was close, but I made it.

I tried to unlock the deadbolt from inside with my key (it's keyed on both sides because there is a huge glass window in the door although I don't know what the difference is - if you break the window, why would you need to unlock the door? Just step in through the window.) The key still would not turn.

I gave up and went out through the back door, around the house, and hauled all my crap in from the front porch and driveway.

I tried the lock again. It opened (unwillingly) this time.

I've gotta get that garage door fixed.