Sunday, October 21, 2012

Bad Day 103--Still not a plumber

So I know you are all dying to know what is happening with my toilet and I am happy to tell you that my sort-of fix is still sort of working. My dear friend Artemis was so worried that she volunteered Adonis to come over and fix it for me, but no need, darling because Husband is on the case and has looked up all kinds of parts on the internet and is bound and determined to help me fix it long-distance. He had me take a picture on my phone and send it to him so he could do some research. So we will see if he can find the right kind of Star Trek flapper and then I will try once more to see if I can make it work. I can hear Tim Gunn in my head as I write that and I would be so much happier if this were a fashion problem, because I would be much more confident that I could fix a fashion disaster rather than a plumbing one. But at least it's nothing worse. My friend "Charlize" told me that she is on a first name basis with her plumber and I know her husband is often gone with the military, so she definitely is having a worse time with her plumbing than I am.

Child 3 is in bed with me not doing her homework. She is supposed to be working on it, but she is interrupting me every two minutes to ask random questions which I can only assume are blatant attempts to distract me into forgetting that she has this particular piece of homework because she forgot to do an earlier assignment. So far she has asked how kids get diagnosed with Autism, what are callouses, and what does "however" mean. Now she is looking at my eye cream. This particular exercise in frustration might just kill me and really, she only has to write two more sentences! Now she is asking if her hair looks weird. Please. Somebody shoot me now, or just tell me what I'm doing wrong. And I don't mean Husband who is full of helpful ideas but is not here to carry them out. Next year, when he is home, I am taking a vacation from homework duty for a long, long, long time.

But before I can take a vacation from homework, I have to also solve the problem of Child 1's computer which put up the blue screen of death and now appears to have problems with the hard drive.



So in addition to plumbing, I have to re-configure a hard drive which I might actually be willing to try to figure out if I had time, but the problem is, I don't have time. So if anyone knows how to resurrect a hard drive, please come help me out, or at least point me toward someone who can who charges less than a plumber.

These women in the Ukraine are having a worse day than me. They have caught something called the "Barbie flu" which means that they spend hours transforming themselves into dolls and have even had plastic surgery to look more like plastic. This is the result.

Valeria Lukyanova: The Ukraine's original, creepily accurate, living Barbie doll.

Now, she is getting a lot of attention, which I'm sure is the point of it all, but how sad to be that desperate for people to love you that you transform yourself into an inanimate object that is empty and has no emotions but what people project onto it. It must be a very sad and lonely existence. So thank you, Barbie girls, for reminding me that women are not dolls and that having your own emotions is a healthy thing and that as much as people love dolls, at the end of the day, they end up alone in a box in the dark. I would much rather be an imperfect, real human being in charge of my own destiny, or at least the part of my destiny that didn't decide to go to Afghanistan.

5 comments:

  1. Microcenter in Vienna does pretty good computer work...

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  2. Good to hear that the flapper you installed is still working, even though isn’t the right type for your toilet. And it is sweet of your husband to help you out even though he was far away. Maybe you can let a plumber take a look at the problem, since they are more familiar with the workings of a toilet. They can probably tell you the kind of flapper that would fit your toilet perfectly.

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  3. If it's called Barbie Flu, can I get vaccinated for it? Also, good luck with fixing everything. Personally, I know nothing about fixing hard drives or toilets, so I admire your efforts.

    Niece 2

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    1. Oh Niece 2, Sister 1 inoculated you against Barbie flu long ago. Maybe even before you were born.

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  4. Even if you don’t know much and have the expert skills about plumbing repair and maintenance, you’ve been able to do it yourself. All thanks to your husband! You can learn a lot from the internet these days which provides various details about certain things. Doing research will help you do the job accurately – just like a plumber! ;)

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