On things breaking

A part that I had replaced on my car six months ago broke the other day.

As a result, I could not shut my car door. 

College did not teach me what to do when your car door will not shut. 

This is a story about how life doesn't always go as planned. This is also a story about how you just have to roll with it sometimes.

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Nine days ago, I bug bombed my house. I cannot hire a big fancy company to bug bomb my house because I just paid a big fancy company to give me teeth.

Priorities, people. 

I spent a whopping $5 on a DIY bug killing kit, and I asked my Dad for some help early(ish) on a Saturday morning.

Killing bugs apparently involves turning off your pilot lights, which for me, means my hot water heater.

For the record, I was told to not mess with the pilot light. Also for the record, I didn't listen.

That night, everything was fine. My bath was hot and my house was bug free.

Life was good. 

On Sunday morning when I woke up, I had no hot water. None, whatsoever, not even an ounce of it. 

I did what any adult woman would do in this situation...I called Dad.

One trip to the store and a lit pilot light later, I had hot water. 

The next day, nadda. I had ice cold water.

Like I whined to my Dad: Why do you need an appliance to heat your water? Hot water heaters are the most inefficient things ever. Why isn't the water just naturally hot? This is the dumbest thing ever to spend money on.

The men in my life gave me that 'you're an idiot' look, and then said something like, Hey, stupid. Water comes from the ground and it's not usually hot when it does that.

Whatever, men. 

I had the privilege of of showering at my Mom and Dad's house that week. Because every adult woman does that, right? 

I bought a new hot water heater and my Dad came over on Saturday to install it. I woke up to my house smelling like gas, and I noped out of there so hard I could not have noped harder. 

I chewed all of my nails off that day. 

You guys, I have a new, shiny, brand-spankin'-new hot water heater. I think he looks like a Frank, so that's officially his name.

He's a sexy beast, that Frank.

tl;dr: I saved $100 by bug bombing my house by myself and then spent almost $500 on a new hot water header. And that part in my car is still broken. 

Pugs and bugs.

The other night, it was around 8 p.m., and I was spent.

I told the Pugs to go to bed...and then I realized they were already in bed.

I crawled into bed, yawned, laid down and went to shut my lamp off beside my bed. And then I saw it. There were bugs crawling all over my ceiling.

Now, I'm not overly sensitive to bugs. I don't mind bugs outside. But bugs are not allowed inside of my house. If you are a bug in my house, you die.

I don't own a flyswatter. Even if I did, it wouldn't have helped me, because my ceilings are 10-feet tall.

I am, on a good day with shoes on, five feet, three inches tall.

Do they make a fly swatter that's five feet long?!?

I decided the solution to the problem involved shoes, a ladder, and a mop. I did manage to kill all of the lady bug things, and I eventually found and flushed all of the corpses.

In the middle of climbing on ladders, cussing, and throwing shoes, my FitBit buzzed because I had reached my step goal.

Of course I thought it was a bug buzzing on my wrist, and I freaked out.

I also accidentally tried to kill a piece of dust on the wall. It turns out, dust doesn't die. It just kinda floats around until you figure out it's dust and not a bug.

My dogs were traumatized. Two slept in the living room that night. The only dog that slept with me was the blind dog, who had no idea what was going on.

Pugs and bugs, I tell you. Pugs and bugs.

Grasshopper of doom.

Not that long ago I got a text message from a friend. A grasshopper found its way to her car, she said, and tried to kill her when she was driving.

I sympathized, but couldn't understand. It's a bug in a car. What's the big deal?

Well, I understand now. The grasshopper of doom thing happened to me yesterday.

I was going to the post office, living out my happy little life and minding my own business, when something flew past my head.

It was scary, and the grasshopper flew past me fast. I was stopped at a stop sign when it landed on my dashboard. It stayed there for a couple of seconds, then flew into my backseat.

How terrifying.

I looked in the back of my car when I got home last night, but couldn't find it. Just to be safe, I rolled all of my windows down in my car, in hopes that the stupid grasshopper of doom would hop its way out of my car and life during the night.

I ran an errand for work this morning, opened my car door, and looked down at the floor.

The grasshopper was sitting there, staring at me, mocking me.

A terrible first world problem enhanced and circled by Photoshop for dramatic effect.

I did what any other adult would do in this situation.

I threw my car keys at it. It didn't budge. I took one of my shoes off and threw it at the grasshopper. It still didn't move. I was thinking it would get scared and jump out of my car.

On second thought, can grasshoppers even get scared? Maybe my line of thinking was stupid.

Anyway, this morning I was standing in my work parking lot, keyless and shoeless, staring at a bug in my car. The only thing left to do was take a photo of it and send it to my friend, the one who understands how evil grasshoppers are.

They come out of nowhere and really do try to kill you when you're driving.

The thing is, I'm a strong, independent woman, except when it comes to bugs. When bugs are involved I become kind of weak and whiny.

Spiders and grasshoppers and other creepy crawlies? I'm not even going to pretend to be strong. There was an incident week involving spiders. Like a grown up, I noped it out of there and made someone else deal with it.

I can handle a lot of things in life.

Bugs I can't handle.

(I finally did get the grasshopper out of my car. It took both shoes.)