I wish I had a picture

Two days ago, a SATURDAY to be exact, FedEx delivered this rather shabby box of mystery to our house (and I emphasize Saturday because I thought only requested deliveries made the cut for the weekend; this was most definitely not a request):

Most entertaining to me is that they also left a sticky on the sidelight window telling us that they'd left us a delivery on our front porch. Yes, thank you, Mr. Obvious. Good thing I didn't trip on the box while trying to read the note that told me it was there. 

The spousal unit periodically orders stuff for work and accidentally ships it home so a package that's not instantly identifiable is not immediate cause for concern. Or bomb squads. Things like that.

But this one rang no bells there either. And forget about checking the packing list; my curious husband just ripped right into that box. And found this:

Note the high quality packing material. Oh, and the soot.

This looks to me like the laptop has a bit of a copper stogie thing going on. I was apparently the only one who thought that. 

See, two and half years + one day earlier, that particular object (on the last day of its lease, no less) burst into flames, setting off the smoke alarm, and waking us up at 3:45AM. Unprepared for incendiary drama, even by the incessant beeping, we dithered, expecting that the smoke alarm was just doing it's usual I-need-new-batteries thing which for whatever reason only ever happened IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING NIGHT. 

My darling husband got up to replace the battery and discovered, much to our surprise, an actual fire. Panic ensued for about 1.5 seconds. Okay, I panicked. He rather calmly, in an act unsanctioned by fire departments everywhere, approached the flames, unplugged the device, threw it in the sink and turned on the water. Problem solved, sortof.* (Disclaimer: I in no way condone his behavior. If you have a fire in your very own house, I recommend you call a professional. A professional FIRE FIGHTER. And then, take their advice and don't keep sneaking back in to peak at the fire. I know someone who did that, it's just not wise.)

It looked sortof like this except it was sitting on the kitchen counter.  I actually only know that by report. By the time I came downstairs, the faucet had done its job.

We filed a claim with our homeowner's insurance and they promised to do battle to get us our deductible back (which they make you pay and then try to get the party at fault to reimburse). They filed suit. They sent updates. We got letters from attorneys making it clear they were either morbidly stupid or didn't care at all - misspelling our last name is forgivable when you are consistent in your misspelling; inconsistent incorrectness is just evidence that you're a slack*ss. They were also rude.

Recently we got the final notice that the insurance company had finally given up. No huge surprise, we weren't holding out hope of getting our deductible back anyway.

But we sure as hell didn't expect to get the cause of the fire back. And I would almost give up my deductible again to get a picture of my darling husband's face when he realized what he was looking at in that box.

W.T.F. doesn't even come close.

*I say "sortof" since putting out a fire has the direct and exceedingly problematic impact of creating enormous amounts of smoke. The smoke was a far bigger deal than the actual fire damage which was limited to the laptop, a Formica countertop, and the hardwood floor where burning bits had fallen. I will now also publicly apologize to the poor dumpster divers who took my ruined Christmas trees that were soot- and smoke-damaged but then packed back in their boxes and left on the curb on trash day. They disappeared before the trash was picked up and it was only then that I realized that I didn't write on the boxes that they were damaged beyond all reasonable use. I can only hope that the horrible smell that came out of the boxes with the trees was off-putting enough. My bad. 

And I don't even like rum . . .

One of my strategies as a parent has been to not learn everything I can about everything in which my kids are interested. This is ostensibly so that they have to figure it out for themselves, thus learning as they go. In reality, it also saves my *ss from having to fix everything ("Sorry! Mom doesn't know how that works!!") when there is a problem.

That's not to say that I don't help. But if my goal is to assist them in solving their own problems, having the answers isn't always necessary. And that saves me from learning about things in which *I* have no particular interest. Like a lot of Xbox games (but that's another story).

Minecraft is one of those interests about which I have no particular desire to learn.

And to illustrate my ignorance, I have no idea what's going on this picture. And I don't really care.

This is what it looks like sometimes in my house:

Well, except that we only have one laptop. And both of my kids are boys. And they typically are playing on the computer in their pajamas. Okay, it doesn't really look like this at all . . . 

Minecraft occupies enormous amounts of their time, both on and off the computer. If they're on, they're playing, researching, watching Minecraft videos on YouTube . . . if they're off, they're talking about what they're going to build, how they'll build it, how many chickens it will kill . . . .

And lately, thanks I suspect to YouTube, they've discovered mods. They MUST HAVE MODS. Which are apparently things that modify (see, I figured that one out on my own) Minecraft and give one access to all sorts of cool things: planes, parachutes, monkeys, Mario, pina coladas. Yes, Pina Coladas. Like the one that Milton got by mistake.

Excuse me? Excuse me, senor? May I speak to you please? I asked for a mai tai, and they brought me a pina colada, and I said no salt, NO salt for the margarita, but it had salt on it, big grains of salt, floating in the glass...

This morning, they are playing Minecraft and insist on showing me almost all the cool stuff in the Tropic Mod that was installed last night (by Computer Expert Dad) - and for two boys who love Florida, Tropic Mod is apparently rocking their world. And I use almost because after I left the room, I overheard:

"Hey, N, you could order a delicious Pina Colada! Aren't these Pina Coladas great?"

"Hey, don't toss out my Pina Coladas!" 

"I'm going back to the beach. You can have my Pina Colada." 

"This place is perfect! It has Pina Coladas!"

"Pina Coladas! Pina Coladas! Pina Coladas!" (That from the 12yo, walking in a circle around the house.)

So apparently the most fun thing in this particular mod isn't the beach or the ocean or the swimming pools that they are building. It's the cocktails. 

The Dustman Cometh (or, I completely suck at my job)

The 12yo lost another tooth:

And from this angle, it actually resembles a tooth. In reality, it's more like a veneer. It's creepy. 

I suppose in some (most?) houses this event would occasion a visit from the Tooth Fairy and a modest addition to the tooth-loser's personal worth. Here? Not so much. 

I totally suck at this. The tooth came out two days' ago. Tooth Fairy has yet to make an appearance. In the Tooth Fairy's defense, I didn't KNOW the tooth had come out until the next morning because it came out after he'd gone to bed and all he did was stick it in the pirate-y tooth box and go to sleep. When he came down to breakfast yesterday, I was treated to a finger-assisted gaping maw, as he pointed to the most recent residence of the tooth. Then, sounding a little bewildered: "The Tooth Fairy hasn't come yet, though."

I explained that perhaps he needed to inform his parents first, clearly not fully registering my own role in this scenario. Expectations were raised. 

FAIL, part two. This afternoon, he looked at me and said, "You know the Tooth Fairy still hasn't come." SH*T. Before I could decide to either come clean or tell him the Tooth Fairy was on vacation, he continued, "Maybe I need to tell Dad, too." 

Yeah, that's it - *both* parents need to be involved to secure a spot on the Tooth Fairy's itinerary. I pointed out that he should probably tell Dad when he came home. 

The really bad part? This is at least the third time the Tooth Fairy has screwed up and forgotten teeth. Both children have been involved. Tooth Fairy has made midday visits like she's running late. Heck, the Easter Bunny forgot sh*t this year. I SUCK. 

And in addition to failing as the Tooth Fairy (and the Easter Bunny), I'm also getting some very subtle commentary on my housekeeping skills, too:

I know, it's a crappy picture. It's not easy to photograph the stickman that your child has drawn in the dust on top of his ceiling fan. And yes, that IS a giant stuffed alligator on the floor below. His name is Cade. He's a bad*ss.

I only discovered the Dustman because I didn't remember until he was getting ready for bed that I washed his sheets this morning and hadn't actually put any sheets back on his (top bunk) bed. Commence frantic bed-making.

I think it's time for a glass of wine now. 

On the unimportance of clean clothes

The 12yo went camping this weekend. With his Boy Scout Troop, which generally leaves me feeling a little bereft. As a stay-at-home, homeschooling parent, I am very much used to having him around so when he's gone, it's odd. Not bad - just odd. I'm really glad he goes and I knew he was going to have fun, but his absence leaves a hole (particularly noticeable to the 6yo) and it's nice to get him back. Dirt and all.

On Friday, as he was gathering his stuff to pack to go, I was very neatly (and graciously!) cramming packing it all in gallon-size zipper bags. Extra shirt, shorts, underpants, socks, rain gear, sweatshirt, etc. Keeps it dry, keeps it separate, keeps it easy to find . . . keeps it from being used, too, apparently.

I even made a special trip to Target the night before to buy the bags. 

When he left the house on Friday to be dropped off for the campout, he was wearing his Class 'A' uniform shirt, jeans, hiking socks and shoes, and a Class 'B' underneath the Class 'A' - to make it easier to strip off the Class 'A' when he got to the campsite.

When he returned this morning, he was wearing the same jeans, hiking socks, shoes, and Class 'B' that he'd left the house in. Two days ago. The only difference was the removal of the Class 'A' which had been crammed into the backpack and left like this:

Look close - that *was* a freshly laundered shirt. With no wrinkles. It did not come home in the plastic bag packed for that purpose. 

 He also neglected to use this:

Or bugspray either, for that matter.

Which means he came home tanned, dirty, with a bag full of clean clothes. He was also happy to report that he didn't need his first aid kit (a bonus since at sleep-away camp last summer, he burned his finger badly enough to need a nurse visit and tore up his shin badly enough that 4 hours later it was still bleeding and needed butterfly bandages to pull the edges back together). And he was barely out of the car before he informed me that for the very first time (in a year-and-a-half of being a Boy Scout), he came home with everything that he took with him. Score.

And he caught the requisite fish to finish his fishing merit badge, started at camp last summer. Which probably looked a little like this:

Without the p*ssed off little brother in the background. I so love this picture.