August 24-28, 2010. Ever came home from a trip where you wished you stayed on vacation? This was one of those times. Everything went wrong. Maybe not everything. But just about everything.
We arrived home late Monday night, so we left all the unpacking and catching up for Tuesday. Tuesday wasn’t bad. Then it all hit on Wednesday. As I cooked dinner on Wednesday evening, we discovered fire ants in our kitchen floor. Huge red fire ants that bite. They were coming from our yard. They were all over our backyard. So the plan was Nathan was going to take the girls to Home Depot and purchase supplies needed to get rid of the fire ants inside and outside. I had to be at church Wednesday night.
As we were heading out the door, Nathan found his car had a completely depleted tire. He had two tires he needed to replace because they were pretty worn. But the depleted tire was not one of the worn tires. It was one of the newer ones, of course. That put us down to one car and I had to miss my meeting. Instead, we took a family trip to Home Depot and bought ant killers for the lawn. As soon as we returned home, Nathan spread it throughout the yard.
That wasn’t the end of it. Friday Nathan took his car in to purchase two new tires and have the hole patched in the depleted tire. It turned out that the hole couldn’t be patched. So $240 and five hours later, we have all new tires on his car. Five hours? Yes, people. The mechanic told Nathan it would take an hour. Well, he was wrong.
And Friday morning, I woke up with my body itching. I didn’t think much of it until I saw small red marks here and there. Then I freaked. Could it be bed bugs or fleas? We don’t have any pets and had no idea how either one of those pests could get in the house. So I washed everything on our bed in scalding hot water. Then dried in the dryer with the heat turned on high.
But then around 11 p.m. the red marks turned into hives. I started to break out in hives all over my body. After some backtracking and detective work, we came to the conclusion that it was the fabric softener that we used to wash our clothes in Washington. I never use fabric softener with our laundry at home. But Nathan’s mom had some at her house and it smelled fantastic. So I used it. Now I know. I’m allergic to it. I went through all our clean clothes to pick out the ones washed with fabric softener to rewash them. Twice. Fun.
Saturday Nathan took my car in for routine oil change and tires balance. The mechanic told him it would take half an hour. Three hours later, he came back with news from the mechanic that we need to have our transmission fluids flushed and there is a crack in the crankshaft and is leaking oil. We thought we would take it for a second opinion elsewhere.
» Tell me… Have you ever felt the series of unfortunate events happening to you? Share your stories.
I feel so bad for you guys! It sounds like the Out of Towners movie with Jack Lemmon but all at home.
Well you can always look forward to Monday!! Yay!!!
Our summer has been a series of unfortunate events! First, an unexpected repair on my car….then the AC on our house needed to be replaced…..then the transmission on my car needed to be replaced…..blah!
Oh my….when it rains it pours…reminds me of a book I used to read my kids, Grover’s Bad Awful Day.
it can only get better, right?
Yes! Yesterday I woke up to my washer not agitating right…..Then when the maintenance guy came, it turned out that the transmission is stripped, the timer on the dryer is sticking on the high heat, and our oven light isn’t working, even with a new light bulb…. I guess it’s a positive that we rent and don’t have to pay for the new ones but i can’t do all the laundry piled up:( then my food processer started smoking mid use and after that my flat iron shorted out on me…..I stopped using electric things by the end of the day…..Here’s to better days for us all today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh wow, kristal! that is a horrible day of electrical things. stay away!
hope you have a great weekend though.
In a word- YES!!! But then sometimes a string of fortunate events can happen, too. I hope this string of bad events turns around for you. (((((((hugs)))))))
Eek. Yuck. So sorry. Car troubles are the worst (and so expensive and always take longer than they say) and ants are super gross. Glad you didn’t have car trouble on your trip and your house is bedbug and flea free. Guess it can only get better from here.
Oh man, that’s awful! Coming back from a vacation only to have everything go horribly wrong makes you feel like you need to go back on vacation again! I hope your weekend is better!
Whatever is going around is catching up with us too. We recently had our oven therm. broken, a week later the garage door spring broke, (thankfully we don’t park our cars in there like it’s intended purpose or else we would have been stuck w/o our only car), and today driving home from a huge purchase from Costco in blistering heat with my 2 little ones, our car does a weird shaking thing like it’s going to go out on me. We took it to get an oil change because it was due and the guy said we should have our transmission looked at because the fluids are darker than usual. Way to top everything off! Money goes money goes…
Hopefully things will be better from here on out. Thankfully you didn’t have bugs in your bed. Bugs/ants freaks me out!
oh no! good thing it wasn’t fleas…i’ve had that problem (even without having pets) and that was not fun. car troubles are the worst though! hopefully this is the end of unfortunate events.
We just spent almost 2 months with my mother-in-law while looking for a house, and we got along swimmingly! She just sent us a care package with walnuts, french bread, and beach towels for the kids just because. She’s never told me how I “should” be doing things, and has always treated me like an equal. Aren’t great inlaws a blessing?
You have my sympathy. I really freak over ants in the house. We don’t have fire ants, but, rather, carpenter ants. They don’t hurt people, but they do a job on the house AND they are huge. Hang on! It will get better.
So sorry to hear of all your trouble. Whenever we have a string of bad luck like that, I think of my mom who would always laugh and say, “When it rains it pours!”