As I opened my sleepy eyes, I saw that Mr.
H. was already up and dressed for the day. His look told me something was wrong.
Rubbing my eyes, I sat up and waited to hear what unexpected event might change
the course of our day.
When you’ve been married as long as we
have, you learn to recognize an “all is not well” look on your spouse’s face,
and sometimes my heart skips a beat until I know the details. Like the morning
I awoke to see that look on Mr. H’s face and almost had heart failure when he
told me our son’s home had burned to the ground. I couldn’t breathe until he
made it clear that everyone got out safely.
Another morning, I awoke when Mr. H. sat
down on the side of the bed. The look on his face told me he had something to
tell me that I didn’t want to hear! I wanted to close my eyes and ears and go
back to sleep, but Mr. H. put his arms around me and said, “I’m afraid I have
bad news.” And he proceeded to tell me that our doctor had called to tell me
that my mother had pneumonia (along with several other serious conditions), and
he wanted me to make a decision whether to put her in the hospital with a
feeding tube or take her home and call in Hospice!
Yet another time, I opened my eyes to see
Mr. H. dressed in layers of clothing and thought it strange until he said, “Our
heat is off.” We’d had a heavy snowfall during the night and many tree branches
had fallen across power lines in our area, wreaking havoc with life as people
knew it. The fact that it was only a few days until Christmas made it even
worse! Our power was off for four days. I’ve never been that cold in my life!
The most recent incident happened seven
months ago. Mr. H. stood at my bedside looking grim. My stomach turned
flip-flops as I asked, “What’s wrong?” And that’s when he told me there was a
message on our answering machine that our youngest daughter had been taken to
the hospital in an ambulance. She was screaming in pain! She was in the
hospital eight days and is not well yet.
With episodes like these in my memory, you
can understand why I feel a little anxious when I see “that” look on my husband’s
face. I wonder why bad news almost always comes in the morning. I think God must
know we can deal with things better after a good night’s sleep.
***
Fortunately, the problem we’re dealing
with now is minor compared to the others, but still an inconvenience and somewhat
upsetting. “The refrigerator is off,” was Mr. H’s news of the day for me. We’ve
been having problems with it for several months, but I’m not much on changing
things. I wanted a new refrigerator about as much as my cat, Liza, wants to
take a long, hot bath!
Lucky for me, Mr. H. is a refrigeration man
and has kept the near-20-year-old fridge limping along for quite a while, but it
occurred to me that it’s probably a little tired and ready for the appliance
rest home.
Perhaps I should rethink buying a new one.
We have a smaller refrigerator in our
downstairs utility room that comes in handy at holiday time when the house is
full of kids and grandkids.
So – kitchen fridge emptied and its
contents moved downstairs, we went shopping
for a new appliance. I even managed to get a little excited – until I surveyed what was available and the price
tags! Especially the price tags! Good grief! The fridge we bought almost two
decades ago is better quality at half the price!
But that’s not the biggest problem. After
we walked what seemed like miles looking at the same ones repeatedly, we
finally chose one, had the paper work done and it was scheduled to be delivered
the next day. Wonderful! you’re thinkin’.
But it was not to be.
When we got home, I walked into our kitchen
and looked at the old fridge and the space it was in. It struck me instantly that
the new one was just a little taller. I called Mr. H. and sure ‘nuff, when he
measured the space, we were short three-quarters of an inch; the new one wouldn’t
fit! So... back to the store he went to cancel the order.
A whole afternoon and a lot of energy
wasted!
That was several days ago and we’ve exhausted
every possibility at every store online looking for that one white refrigerator
that is exactly the right height for our space. We’ve come to the conclusion it
doesn’t exist – unless we want to go to a much smaller capacity fridge, which
we’d rather not.
I don’t understand why everything has to be
such a problem. We had a similar problem a few years ago when our microwave
went out. Took us forever and a day to find a white one! But we hung in there
and finally found it. I’m convinced we’ll find a fridge, too. Eventually.
Just you wait and see! One morning soon, I’ll
wake up and see Mr. H. standing by the bed smiling, and I’ll know he has “good
news” for a change!
6 comments:
Yes, buying new appliances can be a problem. Styles change and like you said, nothing fits anymore.. They change colors too so when you want white you might have to take black. Its stupid and a way for the manufacturers to make money. Good post.
Sounds like you've had a lot of problems happen early in the morning. This is a good post. Makes one think about the serious things in life.
Nicely written. I enjoyed reading it.
It's always something!
Peggy love it so true
Great Peggy
Post a Comment