Good Luck, Bad Luck, Who Knows?

It’s been a hectic week. “First world problems” hectic week, but still. A hectic week. Due to my lack of trust in the human race, I didn’t make it public that we went out of town. That always seems like something that’ll end up on www.RobMyHouse.com. It was bad enough that there were a bunch of strange men traipsing around our place because they were trying to fix our gas leak. Yes, good times. Our house was leaking flammable vapors.

It was a week ago Sunday, and the kids and I had been at a roller rink birthday party. Kid parties usually wear me out, but I’m pretty sure at this one, the adults had more fun than the kids (especially since the kids were asking when it was time to leave and we were still skating around to Katy Perry). Still, I was spent and just wanted to lie down. As we walked through the garage and into the laundry room, I smelled it — gas. The bad, exploding kind, not the stinky, eye-watering kind we’d just left in the car due to the boy. I’m sure most people worry about gas as a general rule, but I’m freaky about it. I don’t like to be near the barbeque when it’s lit. If the stove does that clicky thing too many times and the flame doesn’t pop up, I get nervous. And pilot lights? Don’t get me started on pilot lights.

So when I smelled the gas, it was basically a scene out of some sort of disaster movie, with me trying to act calm but then frantically hustling the kids out of the house, all the while yelling at them to “Get out of the garage, stay out of the house, stay out of the house, stay out of the house!!” So, actually, not so calm.

Long story short, the gas guy comes, can’t find the leak, shuts off our gas, and leaves us without hot water or a stove. So I did what I could to ease the “pain” — showers at my aunt’s house, hot water in the microwave to do dishes, and meals. . . out. I was really trying to keep my cool. Because this was also “Leave for Portland” week — my husband was flying up on Tuesday, and the kids and I were meeting him on Wednesday. And the thing is, you might say I get a little “tense” before trips.

So Monday comes and the plumber shows up (because if you call a plumber on the weekend, you’ll have to sell one of the children to pay for it). And he can’t find the leak either. And since you can’t train hamsters to cruise through pipes with little detection devices (although that would be really cool and is possibly my next get-rich-quick scheme), the next step was cutting through the walls. As the house started getting more and more discombobulated and the problem kept getting more and more complicated, I began getting more and more exasperated.

And then it happened. The drip that broke the mother’s back. You know those buckets at the water park that tip over when they finally fill up enough? Well when I looked under the kitchen sink, one final, teeny tiny drop of water fell into my teetering bucket. Turns out a pipe had busted under the kitchen sink. I stood there and tried to pull it together. Tried to think about my friend who was remodeling her kitchen and had been cooking out of her garage for two months. But the problem was, I wasn’t getting a cool redo at the end of this. I was just watching the frickin’ house fall to pieces around me. And wondering what was going to break next.

That’s when my husband (who should apparently be handling the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks) suggested we switch the tickets and have all of us fly to Portland together. This is sick, but we’ve been having such crappy luck lately that I actually had it in the back of my mind that it was pretty dicey to put us on separate planes anyway — because if you’re going to go down, shouldn’t you just go down as a family? So, somewhat giddy with our spontaneous escape plan, we switched the tickets, surprised the kids with our early departure plan, and then. . .

Sat in the airport for four hours.

We did eventually make it to Portland. But on the way back, we were delayed almost four hours again (and, somehow, one of our suitcases got completely soaked). While we were gone, they found the leak (which was due to a screw up by the last contractor who was in our house), but not before cutting five holes in the walls. But here’s the punchline: whilst cutting into our ceiling, they found out that our dryer vent had become disconnected and was dumping lint into the space above the laundry room (thanks again, other contractor). So if the gas leak HAD ignited, the fire would’ve had plenty of fuel. Oh, and did I mention that this is all right under the kids’ room?

There is a moral to this story.

This just reminds me of the guy who gets in a car wreck, and when they run his MRI, they find a terrible cancer that they normally wouldn’t have caught until it was too late. It all goes back to the Chinese “Good Luck, Bad Luck” story:

There was a farmer who used an old horse to till his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills, and when the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?” A week later, the horse returned with a herd of horses from the hills, and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?” Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this was very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they let him off. Now was that good luck or bad luck?

Who knows?  

Damn life. It’s messy. And leaky. And unpredictable. And late. We sure seem to be experiencing some sort of sucking, karmic down-cycle lately. All I can think is that some day, we’ll look back on this rash of “bad luck” and see a lot more disconnected dryer vents.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

*Our undying gratitude to my dad for getting up at ridiculous hours, driving back and forth, and dealing with all of the people coming in and out of our house while we were MIA. And to Vaughn and Sons Construction for taking such good care of us. And cutting relatively small holes in the walls.