Okay, so that was pretty much the worst President's Day ever. Let's see if I can recreate the timeline...
The night before: Ten minutes after I got off the phone with my mother, during which I uttered the sentence, "It's so great not having to go to the laundromat any more!" - the dryer stopped working. I did some online shopping for dryers new and used, and cursed my bad luck. What a hassle! Then I called a repair service and they agreed to send someone out the next morning.
8:10 a.m.: (And who wants to wake up at 8:10 a.m.on a holiday?) The repairman called and arranged to come out.
8:15-10 a.m.: Frantic cleaning up. Okay, okay, you're right, we probably didn't have to clean up for the repairman. But it was pretty disastrous in there. So we cleaned. I hate cleaning.
11 a.m.: The repairman showed up and announced it was a blown fuse. He pulled the dryer out and messed around with it, then left after installing the $20 fuse for a total of $90. But I'm not complaining: I now know how expensive dryers are! As he left, he said casually, "Oh - and there's a smell of gas behind your dryer. You should call DTE Energy."
11:30 a.m.: We started smelling gas, too. I called DTE Energy. They agreed to send someone out right away.
12:15 p.m.: Scott drove to the corner store for a couple of basic sundries. The car died in the store parking lot. He called in a panic. I told him to call Barb for help, if she was around. She was, and despite an afternoon appointment, bless her, she agreed to come give his car a jump.
12:30 p.m.: The gas man arrived. He was the most unpleasant grouch I have perhaps ever encountered. "We're not in the business of cleaning up after incompetent repairmen," he growled, and then lectured me at great length on how my whole laundry setup was completely against code. He explained (with what seemed rather like relish) that if the dryer malfunctioned while someone was in the shower, it would suck all the oxygen out of the bathroom and the person in the shower would die in short order from carbon monoxide poisoning. I thanked him for this lovely image and sent him on his way.
1 p.m.: The grumpy gas man stomped off just as Barb's car pulled up and deposited Scott. They hadn't been able to get the car started, so it was still in the store parking lot.
1:15 p.m.: With Scott panicking about the car and me seething about the grumpy gas man, we decided to treat ourselves to a hot, fresh, delicious pizza from Happy's Pizza, right around the corner.
1:45 p.m.: No pizza.
2:15 p.m.: No pizza.
2:30 p.m.: We became the disappointed recipients of a cold, soggy, entirely unappetizing pizza that had clearly been driving around for a while.
Now, actually, that's sort of the end of it. The evening improved tremendously with a dinner invite from Barb, who prepared a sumptuous repast on the evening before leaving for New York on business. And really, when it comes down to it, the dryer was fixed, and the gas leak was fixed, and the car mysteriously started again when Scott returned on foot to the parking lot where it sat. Everything could have been a whole lot worse.
But I'm just saying: it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad President's Day.
I'm glad it's over.
