I just broke a vase by accidentally slamming another vase into it. Survival of the Fittest Vase is playing out in my kitchen sink, all because I still haven’t adjusted completely to my glasses. Watch out! I might be driving to the grocery store tonight! We’re out of milk, you see, and the Oberweis guy won’t be here until 10:00 tomorrow morning. If you follow that link, you’ll notice that Oberweis is trying to make me (and you) buy some of their egg nog. I’ve had egg nog once in my life, and that was back in college at a dean’s Christmas party. I don’t handle alcohol very well. Also, I’m intolerant of lactose. I do remember wearing a very cute skirt to that party, but that’s pretty much where the good memories end.
If you know me at all, you know that I’m pretty relaxed. I occasionally get ruffled, but it’s nothing that a five minute goofy typed rant won’t solve. AND, best of all, 89.73% of my rants end without confrontation or consequence, and then I’m back to baking a potato or folding laundry or whatever. Okay.
Last winter, it snowed. You might be wondering where that sentence came from, so let me elaborate. It snowed, which means the temperature was sort of cold, which means our front door wouldn’t open without a significant amount of force. One particularly cold morning, Jeff left to go to work and he closed the door behind him. Twenty minutes later, when the girls and I tried to leave so we could drive Meredith to school, I couldn’t open the front door. I pulled and tugged and kicked it (you know, to loosen it up) for nearly ten minutes with no luck. The only way we could get out of the house involved walking through nearly eight inches of unshoveled snow from the back door around the side of the house to the garage. (We don’t have a door that leads from the house directly to the garage. We’ll talk about that charming feature some other time. Actually, let’s get it out there right now. The people who built the house forgot to put the garage on until after the house was built. Because of this, our kitchen has a big lovely window that looks directly out into the garage. (Our neighbors love that story.))
Anyway, after picking both kids up and carrying them to the garage so they wouldn’t get all wet (I am Superman, and I know what’s happening), I locked the back door and we drove to school. During the drive home, it occurred to me that I don’t have a key to get into the house through the back door. (I didn’t then. I do now.) My mind EXPLODED and I called my dad.
Me: So, yeah. I can’t get into my house through the front door even though that door is UNLOCKED, and I can’t get in through the back door because I DON’T HAVE A KEY FOR THE BACK DOOR and Jeff is in a meeting so now Harper and I HAVE TO SIT IN THE GARAGE ALL DAY!
Dad: If you can wait thirty minutes, I’ll come up and get the front door open.
Me: I can’t wait thirty minutes. I’m kicking the door down.
Dad: Do NOT kick the door down. I’m on my way.
I parked the car in the driveway, stomped up to the front door like Henry Rollins would, and kicked it down. And I didn’t just kick the door down, I became a prime candidate for one of those trashy late-night cop shows by going all Van Damme 360 Spinning Kick Compilation! on it. (I kept my shirt on.)
Five minutes later, Harper and I were drinking hot chocolate and baking muffins or something similarly hypotensive. The only consequence of my rant? I sort of screwed up the door and ruined the door frame. This resulted in over one thousand dollars worth of damage because our door is not a standard sized door (who knew?!), and that’s so crazy because Paul, I think I told you, I’m a lover—not a fighter! My dad came over, fed me a big spoonful of I Wish You Wouldn’t Have Done This, and repaired the door as best as he could.
Tomorrow we get a new front door. It’s infused with the calming scents of lavender and jasmine, and if I approach it at a speed that exceeds three miles per hour, it will belt out this beautiful song, which will either reduce me to tears or put me to sleep. Everything’s under control. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
I hate when I do stuff like that. I left a credit card in my pocket once and it went through the washer and dryer, it melted in the dryer causing the dryer to malfunction and I had to get a repair guy to fix it. I also washed my cell phone, then had to get a new one, and washed and dried my ipod (which my husband left in HIS pocket.) You would think I would learn to check pockets. Anyway, my point is that we all do things like that. Live and learn. I am sure you will have a lovely new front door : )
Love your stories! Dad just helped install a new back door for us when they were down a couple of weeks ago. I love it! Enjoy!!!
LOVE this story. This past summer, I watched a little superball sit on the dryer for probably a month. One day, I decided I would move it (to another place on the dryer) and would throw it away when I finished loading the dryer. When I went to empty the lint trap, I watched the ball roll (in slow motion) into that trap. What do I do? Turn the dryer on… the air will force the ball out, right? Wrong. It made a terrible noise and refused to work ever again.
My mother did something similar to our one year and five month old refrigerator, just a little over a month ago. Well, not similar, but it involved a hammer and a main component to it defrosting.
Needless to say, we have a new dryer and refrigerator! I love the new fridge much better than the other one… so in a way, it was worth it.
I’m sure your new door will be lovely! I hope I made you feel not-so-bad.
Well, I don’t think you should be down on yourself about your bad-ass door kicking requiring the door to be replaced – it clearly needed to be replaced anyhow. If you can’t open it, it’s not a door, it’s a poorly designed wall.
Wow. It was a very good story, but I am stuck on you kicking the door down. I’ve never seen anyone do that outside of cop shows. Man, if my mother did that, I would be telling that story for the rest of my life.
Thousand, schmousand. I bet the whole thing could have been fixed very prettily with some plastic bags and duct tape.
The good news is that you wont have to ask twice the next time you tell me to get out of your way. Don’t be spin kickin’ the Brinski because I’m bad, I’m bad you know it and I hear that Moses went walking with the staff of wood yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Whatever…
I am beyond impressed that you can kick in a door. Also, my grandparents-in-law have a window in their kitchen that looks into the garage, too.
I’m with Jodi. Although I’m sure MacGuyer could have fixed it a hamster, some string & a tampon.
with a hamster! With!
I would love to comment on the front door – but I cannot get past the fact that you have a window into your garage, but no door. I think every day that I would have to go OUT of my garage to unlock my front door I would lose my mind with anger. Maybe you could just deliver a roundhouse to the window and your dad will put a door to your garage!
I can’t possibly be the only one to suggest next time you climb into the garage through the window that looks into it? Yeah ha ha.
I love November, you have the best stories.
I probably would have done the exact same thing. We lived in a house once that didn’t have a back door. The breaker box for the house is in the backyard. One night, I blew the fuses in the kitchen (couldn’t run the microwave the same time as the toaster) three times in a row. By the third trip back, I said screw it and we ordered pizza.
yeah – mere seconds before checking your site I was bringing in the Oberweis milk (cursing how heavy 8 bottles of the stuff are) and noticing that 4 of my 8 had hang tags advertising egg nog. I don’t like egg nog. But for some strange reason (maybe because my milk man is HOT) I was contemplating as to whether I could stomach it in my coffee? You know. Just to be a good Oberweis customer. And by the way – I love having a milk man and can’t understand why the country as a whole did away with them. Fools! I say.
My house was also built without a garage but luckily for me, they built a garage later and closed up the window from the kitchen and put in a door. I have since turned the back third of the garage into a laundry room and had to add another door from the laundry room into the garage.
We don’t have a garage, so I don’t feel sorry for you at all.
Um, yes I do. I tried to sound all bad ass, but couldn’t pull it off.
Ha! I just saw this and thought it would be good addition to the Pudding household given the vase wars that are playing out in your kitchen sink :)
http://mightygoods.com/archives/2010/11/rubber-vase
I had completely forgotten about how awful Van Damme movies are until the previous minute of my life spent on that compilation (I couldn’t finish it; too intense).
After you’d kicked in the door, did you turn to Harper and whisper, ‘I think you need to go clean your room’, in order to take advantage of the badass-mother-do-not-disobey-me-lest-you-meet-the-same-fate-as-the-door moment?
You can never go wrong with some nice Pat Metheny!