It's A Conspiracy

Sometimes it seems like all of my possessions are conspiring against me - the useful items that is, not the ones that just sit on a shelf and look pretty. My nic-nacs are behaving themselves. It's the appliances, the vehicles, the furnace, and even sometimes the furniture that isn't too trustworthy these days. In fact, some days it seems that everything I own is going wonky.

My husband's car is in the shop right now; there's a problem with his 4-wheel drive. And it just came back from the shop three weeks ago, for something else. It's out of warranty, so these repairs are not cheap.

Our furnace is definitely not to be trusted. It's old and grouchy, an ancient oil fired boiler system that seems to always have something that needs replacement or tweaking. Last week something called the "transformer" needed replacement (I thought those were action figure toys) but had to wait and cross our fingers while it limped along. Got the part ordered and installed this morning, but then around 5 p.m. it quit working entirely. Someone came out to fix it again and it seems to be OK, but I'm not reassured. The repairman told us to be real careful to make sure our CO detector was working. Nice.

The computer in the family room needs maintenance or an upgrade, or both. The drawer in our brand new fridge isn't sliding right. Our back porch leaks. Our rear hose spigot doesn't work. Our home's foundation is shifting and the guys that supposedly fixed it the last time have to come back and jack it up some more. Because of this, several doors don't shut properly. And the "power paw" on my brand new vacuum cleaner quit working yesterday, too.

But I'm not going to say "what else could go wrong?" because there are a great many other appliances, small and large...furnishings...gadgets...vehicles...and structures around here that could betray me at any given moment. If you stop and think about it, it's terrifying! Sort of like Mutiny on the Bounty!

Makes you stop and think, too, what would we do without these items that are supposed to make our life easier? (Make our live more expensive is more like it.) Back up plans are good. For example, we have a fireplace with an insert, so if we have firewood (we do!) there's a backup heat source, though we might have to spend all our time in the one room it manages to warm up. If my stove quits working, I have other cooking methods available. I can wash clothes in the bathtub if I have to, and line dry them. If the TV croaks, we could always play board games and read books! (Yeah, like that'll happen.)

The only thing I couldn't live without, the one thing that would seriously mess with my life and my happiness and ultimately my sanity...the one thing I cannot easily replace with a back up plan...is...my computer! ACK!!!! Take away my microwave, take away my blender, take away my hair dryer...but please don't take away my Internet!