Burning Down the House
So, the other week I found a desk on Craig’s List. I made arrangements with the desk’s lady to see it, and called my stepdad to see if I could borrow one of his trucks to haul it. A couple Saturdays ago was the day Rex and I were going to drive up to Doylestown to take a gander at the above mentioned item. We got to my parents’ house, dropped off my vehicle (leaving the keys inside in case they needed to move it, or whatever), and drove away in my stepdad’s sweet Avalanche.
Meanwhile, before we got ‘on the road’ to our destination, we needed to go to the ATM for cash in case we decided we liked the desk. No problem, right? Well . . . I work at the bank (I worked there before I went on medical leave . . . haven’t been to work since October of ’07), so whenever I got my new ATM card, I could change the pin number to whatever I wanted right there.
Unfortunately, since I hadn’t been to work since October, and I received my new card in December-ish, I became one of those customers I lovingly adore, who hadn’t yet changed my pin number and I cannot for the life of me remember what the bank-induced one is. And I don’t keep the number in my purse (I listened to that sage advice I doled out for many-a-year.) So, I pulled up to the ATM and tried to figure out how to get close enough without taking out one of the ‘monster’ truck mirrors at the same time. I do what girlfriends do best and popped my upturned palm to Rex as if to say, “hand over your ATM card.”
This is where the fun ensued.
Now, being a grown man of say thirty-six odd (or even) years, you would think he would have made a habit of carrying his wallet with him by now (you would think.) However, my current boy pal has not made such habits. In fact, the only habits I have seen displayed are very, very bad ones, but we’ll get to that later in the saga.
He gives me the look as if to say, “what? I don’t have it” . . .it comes with the look of not-so-smart-ness, along with the shoulder shrug, both of his palms upturned with the bended elbows. . . and the head nod back and forth (saying no without uttering the sound of the word itself.)
This sets off a whole slew of profanities from my mouth (who me?) 😉
I cannot believe he doesn’t have his wallet! AGAIN!?!? Trust me, if it were the first time this ever happened, this would be such a non-issue, but as it were the, oh, I’d have to say at least hundredth or so time, and each experience came with a dawning of the age of aquarius where he acknowledged to himself and the Good Man above that he really should begin carrying the thing, being since he’s an adult and all.
OK, so I am dually (or can I say tri-ally) frustrated. I do not know my pin number . . .not so happy about that. I am on a timeline to meet the desk’s lady . . . so feeling a little rushed about that. My boy pal doesn’t have his wallet . . . priceless. The tri-effen-fecta right there in the bank parking lot!
Gathering my wits about me, I decide we still have time to swing by my house to pick up his beloved wallet, and still hit another bank before we hit the road. I proceed to maneuver the monster away from the ATM without so much as a scratch! Whew, ok, we’re cooking with gas now.
Arriving home, we realize another miniscule problem. We have no effen house key!!!!!!!!! (yes, the keys were left in my car, at my parent’s house, remember?)
Great. . . fantabulous. . . we have now both won the smartest-person-of-the-year award (can that award really be shared?)
We do not have the time to run back over to my parents for the keys, so I tell him we’ll (meaning he’ll) just have to break into the house (which, by the way was much easier than it should’ve been . . . prompting some security measures to be taken at a later date in which the break-in quotient was seriously reduced.)
Oh, did I tell you we have one of those keypads on our garage door?
Yessireee-bob, we do! And, no, we didn’t know the code for it being since we’ve only lived in the place less than a year and we both have garage door opener in our cars, so the keypad had seemed pretty useless to us . . . until that very moment, of course-a-dilly dandy.
As his arse is hanging half in/half out of the window, I notice some smoke. Yes, that’s right I said smoke. . . and it is puffing, no I think the right world would be billowing, from the lovely railroad-tie retaining wall we have next to our driveway.
At first I re-focus my vision thinking my stepdad’s truck must be on fire since I am seeing the smoke through the windshield. Now, that’s just a pissy thought since I am trying to be so careful with the mirrors, and the truck in general, and now I’ve gone and torched the thing just by driving it?
Soon realizing it’s not the truck, and it is, in fact, my house smoking, I jump (ok, gingerly lift myself down, thanks pain) from the truck and start yelling at Rex’s arse that the house is on fire. . . meanwhile, I’m fumbling for my phone to call the fire squad . . . and he . . .
brace yourself . . .
no, really, this couldn’t have gotten any better . . .
his response to me? . . . “Okay!” . . .
. . . and he emerges from the house with one of those little squirt bottles full of water I’m using to remove the wallpaper!!!!!! Its probably holding less than six ounces of water, and this is his choice du jour for putting out a fire?!?!?!
Rex to the rescue!!
He’s got it covered.
He is so in control with that effen tiny little squirt bottle.
I nearly faint at the sight of it. . . I cannot tell you how un-comforted I am by his display of manhood. . .
I am still digging for my phone, which is still in the truck, in my purse, of which I have trouble re-mounting (thanks back pain, thanks gallbladder pain, thanks incision pain, thanks) . . . and I look at him running toward the smoke with the squirter . . . and I am almost utterly speechless but I manage to get out the last few words I’m sure I’ll ever remember speaking and yell, “I think we’re going to need the HOSE!”
As he reaches the point of the fire, he quickly realizes I am right about the hose.
He then sprints back into the house, downs the stairs inside to the garage, and opens the garage door from the inside. Out he emerges with the hose, a la a scene from Backdraft, as I am getting a better look at the smokes origin point. . . what is that I spy throughest the haze? Is that one of his cigarettes wedged between the railroad ties? Dare I say “Nice” doesn’t even begin to describe it. This is where my panties begin bunching in the most royal of ways . . .
Yes, I said I’d get to his other habits later and we have reached the point in the saga where I need to mention one of them. He is a smoker. I know many people are smokers, but he and I are together on such false effen pretenses about the smoking thing. When my friend, Marie, first mentioned us getting together to meet, she said, “and he just quit smoking . . . he’s going on a month now” Of which I figured, what person makes it a month and then takes it back up? As far as I was concerned, my friend was hooking me up with a non-smoker, which is exactly what I wanted. I was married (and then divorced) to a smoker and I didn’t like it one single bit, so I wanted to date strictly non-smokers, was that so much to ask for? By the time I realized he was taking the bad habit back up, we were already three to six months into it, and my heart was pretty into him, so I figured he was just having a set-back, and would be trying to quit again soon, so I supported him through his addiction. . . and what I though would be subsequent attempts until one sticked at quitting . . .
No, he has not quit smoking yet. We are going on four years together now, and he still smokes like a chimney. I have since met the rest of his family and realize he is never going to quit . . . they are all a family of chimneys . . . every last one of them.
I make him go outside to do the nasty. He does it rain or shine, snow or scalding heat, day or night, outside . . . of which I have purchased many a butt receptacle to keep the lovelies from reaching my new yard. All the butt receptacles have managed, however, to converge on the garage area, but he rarely smokes in that area. The nasty is mostly done on my front porch, of which he then flicks his butts wherever they may wander, wherever they may roam . . . in my yard, in my flower-beds, on my walkways, on my driveway, and yes, this time, even onto my extremely dry, many years doused by oils and such from the trains, and now the adorning my home in retaining wall form, railroad ties. He had flicked the nasty bit before we left about a half hour ago, and there it smoldered, smoked, gained momentum, and was about to pounce my house down to ashes and soot.
He turns on the hose, and saturates the area, of which we have lost a good portion of one of the ties . . . R.I.P. tie, you have served the wall well . . .
Once he’s done, I stick my fingers into the hole and retrieve the soak yet charred butt of his cigarette and stand facing him, he’s still holding the hose, and looking at me as if to say, “I wonder just how wigged out she’s about to get?”
My fingertips feel the heat and moisture of the butt, my nose smells the near-disaster we just averted . . . and my mind races through the circumstances which brought us to this place in time to begin with. I know the Big Man had to have a hand in bringing us back home before our two hour round trip to meet the desk’s lady. . . or maybe it is my good karma . . . either way, I am feeling pretty ‘at peace’ with my decisions leading me back to my home to find it pre-ablaze. I am not, however, feeling ‘at peace’ at all with the boyfriend. . . so I shake my head, turn and re-flick his butt into my yard with the most angry flick I can muster, and re-mount the truck, wordless, speechless, unable to even wrap my mind around what just occured.
He returned the hose, closed up the house, and returned to the truck, equally quiet. . .
About five to ten minutes down the road, I say, “Doesn’t that make you want to quit smoking?” It was all I had in me. I couldn’t muster any kind of mom-like scolding, or anything. . . I just wanted to know if that little display would make him reconsider the nasty. Defensive does not begin to describe how he immediately became in response to my question. I guess it was the wrong thing to ask at that time, but it was all my rational mind could allow me to utter.
I got the desk . . . at a good deal, too. It’s one of those corner units for the computer. I’d been pricing them for about two weeks at anywhere from $175 to $500. I paid forty for it. Great deal.
He still smokes and flicks. That’s just one of his bad habits. . . you don’t even want me to go into the others.
And now I can’t look at the corner desk without remembering . . . the day I nearly lost my home, all it’s memories and contents, and most of all, my gorgeous black lab and new adorable baby cat. . . the things are all replaceable, I know, but the animals are so much a part of my heart that I am quite sure his smoking and flicking arse wouldn’t still be . . .
I’ll just leave it at that. . .
Thank You, Big Man Upstairs.
