So we had a good weekend this past weekend. Even though I was so tired by Saturday night that I went to bed at 9:30. Which would make the twenty-year-old me very sad at the lameness but makes the forty-year-old me think that at least I’m not as lame as P who fell asleep sitting up on the couch at 8:25.
But we can both blame the sleepover.
On Friday night, Caroline’s school had this little fundraiser thing where you could drop your child off at the school from 6-9 for $20. The third grade teachers were the chaperones and the kids were basically treated to a dance party, craft session and running around on the playground.
Meanwhile, P and I went out on a date like real live people who enjoy conversations that aren’t interrupted by jokes heavy on the potty humor. Even though we knew our fancy night out had a shelf-life of three hours. Especially since we’d agreed that Caroline could have two friends come back to our house to spend the night.
I picked the girls up and they filled me in on all the evening festivities and then we got to the house and I made them a giant pallet on the living room floor because this is Caroline’s favorite sleepover routine. Why would anyone want to sleep in comfortable beds when you can spread an old comforter on the hardwood floors?
Since the girls were settling into the living room, P and I decided we’d watch T.V. in our bedroom. But then we remembered that we don’t have a T.V. in our bedroom because the old T.V. that used to be in our bedroom belonged to my dad and he took it back because it saved him approximately $5.00 and he is never one to walk away from a $5.00 savings.
And we currently have two televisions in the living room. The big one that we actually watch and another antiquated one that’s in the armoire we still haven’t moved into another room because we’re trying to figure out our built-in situation and evaluate our armoire needs.
(This is all a terribly boring lead in to what I’m sure you’re hoping will be an interesting story. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t get any better.)
So P hoisted the antiquated T.V out of the armoire in the living room to carry it to the armoire in our bedroom. And he nearly died because it weighs approximately 800 pounds since it was made when plasma and led screens were just a gleam in Sony’s eye. But he got it into the bedroom and then we tried to hook it up to our Dish Network remote.
Unfortunately after a highly technical method I like to call PUSHING EIGHTY-FOUR DIFFERENT BUTTONS REPEATEDLY, it still just had a snowy screen. So I tried to call Dish Network to get help but the customer service line was closed and that’s when I noticed on the website that I could get immediate help using their online chat feature with a customer service representative.
And that’s how Victor and I became BFF at 9:42 p.m. on Friday night. He helped me troubleshoot on the T.V. in the bedroom until he finally suggested that I go to the source of the problem which was apparently the T.V. in the living room. I pushed all the buttons Victor suggested and he would respond with a politely typed, “Thank you, Melanie”. And I would reply, “You’re welcome, Victor.”
But in the end, nothing worked. I could sense Victor’s disappointment and sense of defeat all the way from India. He typed, “I am truly sorry, Melanie. Your remaining option is to ask for a new remote from Dish Network on Monday.”
Which didn’t help us at all on Saturday night.
Then P went into the bedroom to try it one more time and change a few channels and mash a few buttons. And he called out, “Did you plug in the cable wire to this T.V. after I carried it in?”
No.
No I did not.
And it’s amazing how plugging in the cable wire to the back of a T.V. immediately fixes your cable problem.
I was just glad Victor had already departed from our chat session so I didn’t have to make this admission to him. He would have been so disappointed in me. It probably would have been the end of our friendship.
Anyway, in the midst of all the bonding with Victor, Caroline’s teacher dropped by to say hi. And we visited for a little while after I’d discovered I’m an idiot who doesn’t plug in cable wires to televisions and wastes hours of poor unsuspecting tech support folks’ lives. Somehow I ended up plugging in my You Curl curling iron so I could curl her hair.
(I don’t make a habit of curling my child’s teacher’s hair, but she is also a friend and is only twenty-eight years old.)
(Don’t ask me why her age matters but the fact that she’s younger than me makes me feel like I was offering a hair mentoring service.)
(It also explains why when I explained that the curls wouldn’t look like Nellie Olsen’s after they fell just a little bit that she asked, “Who’s Nellie Olsen?”)
So I had the curling iron sitting on the kitchen island when Caroline came in and pulled open a drawer looking for the ice cream scooper. And the curling iron started to fall and she tried to grab it. Fortunately, I saw the whole thing happening and knocked it away before she could make a good catch and it was just a small burn between her thumb and forefinger.
We immediately began to run cold water over it and applied some burn gel stuff that I’d bought a few weeks earlier when I had a bad run in with some juice from a pork roast. (Wow. That sentence sounds gross.) And I also gave her some Tylenol. She’d never been burned by anything before and was crying. I kept rubbing her back and telling her it was going to be okay, assuring her that it would stop hurting in just a little while.
I helped her settle back in with her friends and got them all bowls of ice cream with chocolate syrup and sprinkles because that cures almost anything. But she was having a hard time eating because the burn was on her left hand and she’s left handed. That’s when she said in a pitiful voice, “Now I know exactly how Bethany Hamilton feels. Neither of us can use our hand.”
Yes.
That’s the same.
Before I could say anything, I heard P say, “That is not the same. She got her arm bitten off by a shark, you have a small burn on your thumb.”
She pushed it too far with the post-injury drama in a bid for more sympathy.
In other words, she literally jumped the shark.
