This fucking mess of a day.

Shit breaks – I know shit breaks. I know how to fix, replace, move on. I do this stuff. I get annoyed when it costs money, especially when money is tight. But we need a dryer, so I bought a dryer. The plan was that Will Dearest would pick it up tomorrow.

Only that’s not a great plan anymore, because I picked Will up from work today, the poor thing suddenly down with something terrible that involves vomit. Also, I am terrified of germs that cause vomiting.* Which makes me a dreadful nurse, and then a guilty wife.

Additionally, I am currently afraid of our apartment. Will is curled up in bed, and with any luck, will stop getting up to puke, and get some sleep, and then feel better. I picked up juice for him and set it on the counter. I can’t go in the bedroom. I am worried that if I take a shower, that the steam will turn the bathroom into a giant petri dish. I keep my toothbrush in there, yo. Is it safe to touch the cat that’s been sleeping with him?

So I fled the house to get him some juice. Also the cupboards were bare with after-holiday and all. So groceries – Man Cub and I had at it. And the grocery store was bizarre. They had almost none of the things that we usually get – the whole list had to be refurbed. I’m not sure what ended up in the cart, to be honest, except for the corned beef. I know about the corned beef, because I cannot stop thinking about it. I would not have bought the corned beef if there had been any chicken. And I’ve been wanting corned beef for, like, weeks, but haven’t been able to justify it until now. I cannot wait for WIll to feel better so we can eat corned beef.**

As we pulled into the driveway, Will texted simply this: We’re out of oil.

Fuuuuuuck. Is there anything worse than being sick and not having a hot shower available?

Ok, ok, I know this drill.*** This means that we need to buy diesel, and pour it into the side of the house. 10 gallons usually will do the trick until we get oil delivered. I know how it works. I did not, until tonight, know how *to*. I now know where the oil goes in, and I now know where Will Dearest staches the gas can for these such emergencies. There was a lot of scrambling in between. Man Cub now knows how to pump gas, too, because, omg, teaching moment. And so we pumped gas, and so we funneled diesel into the house. And we reek of it. And the car reeks of it. Did I mention all this happened by the flashlight? But the radiator is aflutter with bird sounds, and it’s warm in here now.

When I called Endicott Oil, they were a big bag of dicks. Not that I expected them to show up at my beck and call, but a confirmation for Monday would have been great. No, no they won’t come here anymore, I was informed by the call center operator, who informed me of, “poor payment history,” which is a whole big bunch of bullshit, considering that the last time I payed them off, I ended up with a credit on my account. (I was proud of that! I hung the statement on the fridge.) Additionally, it would have been paid off sooner if they hadn’t lost one of my checks the month before. But we owe them for the last fill, and they would not accept my offer of payment in full upon arrival, either. So they can have it in little pieces over the course of the year, as I’ll be paying someone else for oil from now on, I guess.

But there’s good news: the house is warm, for starters. Will will indeed recover. I have two oil carriers to call in the morning. We will have a dryer tomorrow, thanks to the resourcesfulness of Man Cub and his friends, who made a new plan, and are bringing a truck, and will pick up the dryer in the morning. Meaning that once the sickness has passed, we can wash the sheets instead of burning them (tho’ there is enough diesel in the clothes Man Cub and I wore on our adventures to do said burning in a jiffy. Did I mention that Man Cub learned to pump gas tonight?) And there is the couch to crash on until poor Will is on the mend.

This is how we do it. We keep going. Hella way to start the new year, but I’m hoping it’s just 2015 getting the kinks out early. I am grateful for the teenager, I am grateful for the support of my friends, I am grateful for band-aid solutions, I am grateful that this January has a third paycheck in it. Tomorrow will be better – I’m confident of it. Here. We. Go.

 

***

*A few years ago I had norovirus. I spent more than a week shuttling between bed and the bathroom, where I would sit on the toilet while throwing up into bags. When I got back to bed, I would cry, alternately believing that I was dying, and begging Will to kill me because it hurt so bad. I reread the Dragonriders of Pern Trilogy, which, incidentally, is not nearly as good in your late thirties as it was when you were a preteen. I cannot express to you how scared I am of catching that again.

**For Will to get better and the requisite time to pass so that I will not get whatever he’s currently having. I would really hate to become adverse to corned beef because after looking forward to it for weeks, I then proceeded to throw it up all night.

***Because I am terrible at keeping track of the oil.