The Military Wife Curse...

Yes, it's true.

The curse D O E S exist.

And regardless of the number of years "livin' the life" - there are no exemptions for time in service. Sorry.

We all must accept the cold, hard, fact that by falling in love with someone in the military and marrying them, the curse has latched onto your life as the bastard leach that it is, to wreak havoc during each and EVERY separation.

I have at least one story for every separation. Some are bigger catastrophes than others.

There's the month field problem husband went on when we first arrived in Alaska. We hadn't been in our new home long enough to learn all the quirks of the place before he left. So, the morning he left, while putting our new puppy outside for a potty break, I ended up locking myself out and my twelve month old baby in... We lived in the sticks, the few neighbors we had were not home. It was several years before average folks like us would have a cell phone...my only option was to kick in the solid wood, dead-bolted front door. Broke the door and the door frame, but I got inside. Had to call our new landlord and explain how her new 5'2", 110 pound tenant had just destroyed the front entrance to her property. And of course, I had to pay to replace the door and the door frame.

Then there was the snowstorm from hell that hit Alaska...while husband was once again gone 30 days somewhere. First our Explorer had to crap out. THEN the snowstorm. The plow guy wasn't plowing our road or driveway...so when the Explorer was finally ready to be picked up, the Ford Courtesy van couldn't get to my house. I had to trek a quarter mile in snow up to my mid-thigh to get to the main road. OH and I had a baby to carry out with me...not to mention my purse AND her car seat. When I finally got the Explorer back to our road, I had to dig a trench up to the house wide enough for the truck so I could get it close enough to plug the damned thing in. Yes, for those never having lived in Alaska, it is so cold in the interior, you have to plug in your vehicles so a heater can keep your oil warm enough to circulate in your engine when you start it up.

Oh fun, fun times and husband got to miss out on all of it. Each and every time.

A N D, this 30 days separated has been typical. The curse strikes again and again - and again. Hopefully, if bad things do happen in threes, then today was my grand finale for THIS separation.

Lets see. First off - husband left on a Friday. A storm rolled through that Sunday night. Monday, the babies and I go to get in the truck and there's a HUGE limb laying in the front yard.

The minute I saw the limb, I knew...

It was the curse.

Husband is gone and he's the muscles of this operation. My physical abilities are limited, so how I was going to chop up this huge limb was beyond me. So, I dragged it to the side of the house and deposited it in the middle of our driveway. We don't use our driveway, so it wasn't in the way. I surmised until I figured out what to do with the damn thing, we'd just look like white trash for a while with the tree limb laying in the drive.

It's just a tree limb after all. Not a huge deal, more irritating than catastrophe.

The catastrophe was just around the corner waiting to sneak up and smack me over the head. Before we can share that story, we first must cover the second coming of the curse.

For over a week, we've been in the triple digits. Normally, we have a dry heat. Not this year. No, we also had high humidity. The temperature would be 106 degrees, but the "feels like" heat was 112 to 115. To say it was hot is an understatement. When the wind would blow, it felt as though someone turned on a hairdryer, blowing hot air in your face. The desert didn't have much on us.

The babies and I planned to stay inside and stay cool. It was so hot that even with the air conditioner on high in the truck, we would still sweat. Yes, staying inside was the answer. That is, until our downstairs air conditioner crapped out.

DAMN DAMN DAMN!!

What the hell do I do now?

Yes, the simple answer is go out and buy a new air conditioner. Why, of course! Why didn't I think of that?

No, you see, the problem is as I mentioned above...the muscles of this operation is gone for thirty days. The downstairs air conditioner is an older model and was here when we purchased the house in June of 2002. And, it's a big one. I'm guessing it's a 24,000 BTU air conditioner. It probably weighs a good 200 pounds at the very least, and it's wider than my arms can reach - that's for sure. So, I could easily go to Lowes and buy a new 24,000 BTU air conditioner. I just couldn't get it out of the truck once we got home and I certainly couldn't get the old one out of the window and the new one put in.

So, I went in search of a portable air conditioner. Wednesday, in 107 degree heat, the babies and I started searching for one at 10:30 in the morning. Wal-mart had no air conditioners left at all. Lowes had air conditioners, but no portable ones. Finally I went to the new Sears store that recently opened in a town 30 minutes or so from us. The gentleman in the new store said he didn't have any, but he called the store in the next town. He said he'd worked in that store a year ago and he knows they had several at that time. The associate in the other store said they didn't have any, but the gentleman urged him to go look at a specific spot in their storeroom. Twenty minutes later he called back and said they had ONE...by this time it was 5:30 in the evening. They'd hold it for me - and off the babies and I went another thirty minutes to the Sears in the next town.

Unfortunately, the one portable air conditioner they had is only 10,000 BTUs. Thankfully, we finally got a break in the heat-wave today with the high only in the mid-eighties. The 10,000 BTU portable air conditioner wasn't able to cool our large living room when it was in the triple digits on Thursday. It was better than having nothing though.

****

A N D finally, the curse's catastrophe finale. Well, hopefully this is the last of the curse for this separation. After today, I'm truly at my limit of handling anything else falling apart or crapping out.

Daughter's friend was coming over to play from 11-3 today. We got up about 8:30 and had breakfast. I did a few things around the house before we went to go pick her up. We came back to the house and they wanted to play out front. While they were playing, I watered our ferns that are on their last leg due to the heat.

The postman showed up and son ran out to get the mail from him. Junk mail and...a small envelope from the city. Whenever I get something from the city, it's NEVER good news and today was no exception.

I open the envelope and it's a note from our water department. It says:

To Whom It May Concern: Shannon **** *****

In reviewing your water usage this month we have noticed your usage has increased from 4,200 to 29,100. Some high usages are due to increase of water usage during the summer months. Other possibilities are a possible leak or that a stool that was running. Please let us know if you are aware of your increase of water usage this month.

Of course, with husband gone, my water usage should have gone down since he's not home taking long hot showers and there is less laundry to do.

I call the water department and they send someone out. He says I'm losing about 300 gallons AN HOUR. He walks around the house and says he doesn't see anything that would suggest an outside leak.

At 300 gallons an hour, if it was leaking in the house, I would surely have noticed. I did a walk-through of the basement and thankfully nothing is leaking down there.

So, I ask if the water guy can just cut off my water until I can get a plumber out here. He says sure.

Long story short, daughter's friend was taken home early and the plumber arrived this afternoon. He also did a walk-through and saw no leaks. So, he cuts the house's main water valve off in the basement and then goes out and turns on the water at the meter. Meter starts spinning. That tells him the leak is between the meter and the house...in the ground.

DAMN DAMN DAMN!

The plumber was super nice. He left me a meter key which is a long pole that turns the water on and off at the meter. This way, over the weekend, I can turn the water on to get our baths and to flush the toilets but turn it back off so the water bill doesn't put us any farther into the poor house.

They've called so someone will come out and mark the gas lines and such hopefully Monday morning. That way, the plumber can come back out and dig up my front yard to find what is broken and gushing water and fix it. He estimated it'll cost us around $450.00. The water company says that my normally $35.00 water bill will be $197.00 this month and will probably me even more next month since the leak will be on that bill also. They did say that once the leak is fixed, to call and let them know. They end up reimbursing half of your high "water leak" bills based on the average of your normal bill.

So, every time I have to use water in the house, I have to run out and turn the water on, hurry and do what I have to do with the water and then run back out and cut it off. It's gonna be a FUN weekend.

I'd planned on going this weekend and getting my hair cut - do something for myself just to make me feel good. My hair hasn't been cut in months, so it's long overdue. I'd planned on buying a memory foam mattress pad thingy. I've heard great things about them - especially for people like me who have trouble sleeping due to pain. I'd also thought about going to Hobby Lobby and buying a painting kit to try my hand at a new hobby. I won't be doing any of that...I'll be pinching pennies until all this gets taken care of and I see how bad it's going to put a dent in our checking account. Between the new air conditioner and now the water leak...I'm estimating we're out at least $1200 in less than a week.

I really, REALLY hope this is the last of this separation's curse. I truly am at my limit now. If something good would happen just to balance a little of this out...heck what am I saying? If nothing else bad happens,I'll consider that something good and be thankful.

Damn that DAMN curse!!

posted by Shannon at 5:33 PM   |    |  

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