Is this some sort of a test? Really? It's not? It's just bad luck?
I am typing this less one index finger. I slammed it in my car door last night getting out of the car to go get the cat and move back into my house, which you might recall had power yesterday afternoon.
Okay, so the house was empty as I came running in through the debris. Bloody, broken finger. Empty house. I called Poor Writer Guy who was supposed to be leaving for his father's house last night so they could finally celebrate Christmas. But instead, he took his x-girlfriend, the albatross, to the emergency room.
Oh yes, and during the period of power-having we went through yesterday, I learned that my mother had spent the day in the hospital. As of when I slammed my finger in the door I didn't know what was wrong with her yet.
I was very calm when that tree came into my room Sunday morning. I was very calm when the rest of that tree barred us from using our front door. The first twenty-four hours while I didn't know where the cat was? I handled it like a pro. I was pretty chill for those four days without heat or electricity or even much cell phone service. When that man at the gas station suggested Icome to his house to shower because I looked so rough and told me his wife went to work at two? Yeah, I was okay. I took another broken tooth like a champ. I was reasonably sane acting when I learned my mom might have appendicitis and there was something on her liver and ovary and blah blah blah. I was fairly clear minded as I got my finger out of the door...
For about a half hour it all came together to make me a crazy woman insisting that I was the twenty-first century's answer to Job. But I couldn't handle this. We had found the limits of human endurance.
We went to the emergency room that's even closer than the nearest bus stop to my house. And we sat. And we waited. And then we fianlly got to check in. And then an hour and a half later when we got to triage and the power in the hospital went out and it became clear that my sad little broken fingertip did not qualify me for the generated electricity-run x-ray machine I was okay. We laughed. And we left.
And when I came home and learned that my power was back off and it was back to Writer Guy's house for me? I was numb. There was nothing left to do. I just took a deep breath in and accepted that as soon as there are agnostic saints, he'll be one. Four days in a studio apartment with me and my hyperactive cat, y'all. Without a complaint.
I'm back home this morning and for now there is power and phone service. And school tonight... and my mom is okay. Writer Guy is off to his dad's house twelve hours late. I really think it can only get better from here. But go ahead and knock on some wood while you read that.
