I’m sitting at my kitchen table, computer humming FINALLY. George, the Comcast guy, just left after repairing our Internet service for the third time in two days. At this point, we have his cell phone number and he’s met the entire family. We’re buddies. I was unaware of just how dependant I had become upon our Internet service and the ability to get on here and type away my problems. It’s been rough.

If only I had known what Monday morning would bring, I would have passed on the five-hour drive home Sunday evening and stayed at my mother’s house following our wonderful Mother’s Day celebration. The week opened with a major study in frustration.

Highlights:
Our land-line phone had been out most of last week, which I knew but had forgotten in all of the rush. Bright and early Monday morning, I used my cell phone to check voicemail, discovering that I had ignored eleven phone messages, most of which were left well before we took off for Ohio on Friday afternoon. I had missed the appointment made by Sweet Amy at Ossip/Dixon with an Ophthalmologist. She pleaded on the voicemail . . . “Debi, we need to know if you’re going to keep this appointment.” I actually remember wondering on Friday why she had never phoned to set the promised appointment. Duh!

A new cancer survivor friend had called to invite me to walk with her at CGMS on Friday at the Relay for Life rally. She had received no response.

Friends had left messages asking me to please return their calls. No response. I hate letting people down and I felt horrible.

It wasn’t long until the AT&T guy arrived to fix the phone. He was in and out of the house over the course of the entire morning. He informed me that his visit would cost us some bucks because we didn’t have linebacker. Well, Yes we do! I told him to proceed with the fixing while I called AT&T to straighten them out.

BF was pressured, having just a few hours before beginning his “real job” Monday afternoon, to mow and trim two lawns. I was taking on his pressure second hand. You know how that goes.

Michael was home. While we were in Ohio, he returned with another semester under his belt and the typical mountain of laundry. While on hold with AT&T, and directing their repairman, my son stumbled into the kitchen, dark circles under his eyes, rumpled clothing, and his hair a wild mess. “The Internet’s out,” he announced slumping into a kitchen chair.

“You look like a drug addict,” was my only response. He went back to bed.

We had no food in the house and I needed to make an emergency Meijer run before lunch.

Still on hold with AT&T 51 minutes later, I gave up. I needed to phone the office of Dr. Bridget Sanders as I was to report to her at 7:00 A.M. the next morning for the colonoscopy that I’d been dreading for a month. I had yet to receive the packet of information regarding “the prep.” I had eaten so much over the weekend that I was actually looking forward to “the prep,” or perhaps I should say the results there of.

I made the executive decision that Michael needed to make a trip to the coin-op with his mound so I could use our washer and dryer. He packed up while I searched for quarters, still balancing the cell phone on my shoulder and answering questions for the phone man and BF who periodically popped his head in the back door.

The phone was eventually fixed and began ringing constantly as I scheduled, rescheduled and triple rescheduled doctor’s appointments and the colonoscopy. Oops! No supplements or vitamins for a week prior to, and no food the day before. Not even breakfast!

None of these events were life shattering. All were ultimately fixable. However, when too many fixable situations occurred within a short period of time, they became overwhelming. Overwhelmed grew in the midst of the fertilization of failure, letting people down. I was not answering phone calls and e-mails, not keeping appointments, transgressing against kind, well-meaning people, in a way in which I do not easily forgive others when those identical sins are committed against me. To make matters worse, I was not addressing my son, not storing food in the house and to top it all off, the Internet was out and I couldn’t write.

In times like these, there’s only one thing to say: shit on a stick!

I just realized it’s probably not nice to write about a colonoscopy and use the phrase “shit on a stick” in the same blog entry. Oh well.