The Day Things Broke

“Hopefully your stuff doesn’t start to break. That seems to always happen when husbands deploy,” my neighbor told me sweetly.

What? My stuff couldn't break. I’m awful with tools. I just figured out the difference between and Phillips and flathead last year for God’s sake.

I’d just have to be very careful then. Yes. That’s what I’d do. I’d be very careful and....

“Mommy! Look what happened!” Natalie pointed angrily to her toy. Which was, oh no, BROKEN.



But that’s okay, she’s three, things are inevitably going to break when a three-year-old is hanging around them.

So long as nothing major broke, I’d be fine.

A few hours later I was on the couch, trying to concentrate on what in the world was going on in 19 Kids and Counting. Were the older kids getting stuck with the task of cooking dinner again? Maybe I should make my kids cook dinner when they got older. The Duggar kids seemed to like it. Then again, they think that dancing is the Devil’s work or something. I bet they’d pass out if they popped into a club in New York. I bet—

Ka-thunk.



That was the sound of a piece of the couch falling to the ground.

“Seriously?” I said out loud.

“Seriously?” Natalie mimicked.

“I didn’t do it,” Tommy chimed in.

Oh no. What if everything was starting to break? Suppose the car broke down next? I don’t speak car, what in the world would I do? I guess call the car maintenance people and say things like, “Yes, the black thing under the hood looks funny.” But crap, aren’t most things under the hood black? How boring is that though, can’t things be different colors? Like the engine could be purple, and the....um...oh hell, the only thing that I know that lives under the hood is the engine! Crappity, crap, crap.

I managed to fix the couch.

Phew.

Everything was okay again. Please oh please, let nothing else break.

Later we settled down the eat dinner.

I settled down into my seat and....

*Snap*



There went my armrest.

“I’m cursed!” I said dramatically, palms pointing upward.

“Me too!” Natalie said, copying me.

“Do I have to eat my peas?” is all Tommy offered.

The good news is, nothing has broken since then. *Knocks on wood frantically*

The bad news is, I still have eleven months until Tom gets home.

So please. PLEASE.

Let that have been it.

(Ironically, right after I finished the entry, one of my fans stopped working.)