the man has been working 12 hour shifts for the past 2 weeks. 7AM-7PM. which means, in a nutshell, that he leaves before the children are up and comes home in time to see them for about an hour before bedtime. this will continue for 1 more week and then, hopefully, his schedule will return to normal.
the hole digging fiasco occurred during this. I called him, explained the situation, asked for help. he replied with something along the lines of, "what exactly do you want me to do? leave work to fill a hole up?" to which I replied with a loud click. OK, so I did take care of it by myself with no help from him. I am a capable woman, however, hauling 2 wheelbarrels full of dirt up a hill was NOT mentioned in the marital vows.
fast forward to the past few days. I tell him that the water heater is making a noise. he walks out to the garage, looks at it, comes back inside and informs me it is not making a noise right now. therefore, in his world, it's fine. did I mention he's been gone for about 13 hours/day and of course it's not going to make the noise for him. sort of like when your car makes a noise and you take it in and then the mechanic guy looks at you like you're a feeble minded fool who knows nothing about the workings of a V8. which, of course, I am. I don't want to know how the car works, I just want it to effing work when I put my key in and put my foot on the gas. end of story. but, I digress....
so, water heater is now making more noises and now there is water coming out of an overflow valve outside where before there was no water. now it's whistling and humming. I call him again. his solution is to tell me where the shut off valve is and to turn it off to see if the noises stop. well, of course the noises stop if you turn the thing off, right?????? but, umm, don't we need hot water at some point?
he then tells me he's been talking to the guys at work about this, and they seem to think we should have someone come out to look at it.
no shit. I never thought of that.
then he proceeds to tell me to call S***s to see when they can send someone out and we'll probably have to get a new water heater installed. now, I should also mention that while he's telling me this, the baby is crying. no, screaming. he is teething and goes through these "I am really pissed and don't know what I want so I will just scream for about an hour and then I'll be OK" phases. he is such a happy guy normally. it's easy to tell when something is wrong, he screams. it'll be nice when he can say,"oh, btw, my tooth hurts a bit", until then I get screaming.
so, baby is screaming, duaghter is asking for more Playdoh because apparantly the Playdoh she was playing with is now missing(something you DO NOT want to hear)., and the man is telling me to call and schedule a repairman to come to the house. let's just say this was my last straw. I had a minor breakdown on the phone in which i explained that I needed him to take care of this because, I was a tad busy and pissed that he was at work doing absolutely nothing while I was taking care of everything else in our world.(and I'm not kidding, he was reading a book when I called him....there was a computer glitch and everyone was sitting around doing nothing) so, everyone at work heard my little tantrum and now thinks I am a royal biatch for yelling at my much beloved husband.
the effects of this meltdown were this- he will call and schedule the repair and make it so that he is home to handle it. if this indeed happens, wonderful. if i have to take cold showers for a week before this happens, there will be hell to pay. me + cold showers and being a single parent do not mix. not at all.
