The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

I haven't blogged in what feels like forever, and until this moment, you've been missing out on the story of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day story (thank you Judith Viorst Shel Silverstein (I stand corrected - thanks Mom!) for a very appropriate title).  It involves a toilet in a tizzy, overflowing sink, and dog poo.  All before 9am.  Do I have your attention now?

Let's cut to the chase - I'm convinced that either a) my house hates me; or b) it's inhabited by a ghost that magically knows when Mr. Sweetie is out of town and then proceeds to break the most random things.  Case in point - the past few times Mr. Sweetie has been away, the AC system broke (in the middle of a heat wave, doesn't get more awesome than that); the doorknob to our outside door fell off - you could stick your hand through the door and unlock the deadbolt (the day before I was supposed to leave for a weekend up at Lake Placid, of course); and then last Tuesday, we had a bit of a plumbing issue.

Last Tuesday I had grand plans to get into work super early to squeeze in almost a full day at my desk before setting off for the airport, Phoenix-bound.  But the toilet had other plans.  Toilets are sneaky like that.

On Monday night, I arrived home to see a notice from the county saying that they were shutting off the water that night from 10pm - 2am for maintenance.  No big deal, right?  I made sure I was hydrated enough before bed that I wouldn't be thirsty, etc.  When the water was turned off, the toilet and plumbing made some loud protestations, but nothing to be terribly alarmed about (or so I thought).  The next morning, when the toilet was flushed for the first time since the water being turned back on, it made such a loud noise I was convinced that the pipes in the wall were going to come crashing into the room, and then the toilet proceeded to screech at a pitch that only dogs could hear for the next ten minutes (evidenced by the tortured looks Miles kept throwing in the direction of the bathroom).  I turned on the sinks in the bathrooms and kitchen in an attempt to get water moving in the pipes and hopefully shutting up the toilet.  It seemed to work, the screeching subsided, and I went about my morning.

Then, this is where it gets real fun.  The next time the toilet needed to be flushed, it decided it just wasn't interested.  Every time I pressed down on the lever - silence.  I woke Mr. Sweetie up from a blissful slumber via text message - hope you're awake - toilet is in a tizzy and I don't know what to do.  I'm completely ignorant when it comes to fixing toilets - Mr. Sweetie tried to help me troubleshoot over the phone to no avail.  Tank was empty, it wasn't filling even though water was streaming into it - then where is the water going.  Mr. Sweetie suggests I turn all the faucets on again (even though I politely - okay, not very politely - informed him that I'd already done that earlier in the morning).  On go the faucets full-blast upstairs, in the kitchen, and in the basement.  Unfortunately, I forgot the one minor detail that the sink in our bathroom doesn't drain super quick and I almost flooded our bathroom, turning off the water just in time (or so I thought).  I start throwing the excess water from the sink into the toilet tank, since nothing else seemed to be filling it.  As I'm doing that, I notice that water has begin streaming out from the cabinet underneath our sink.  For a moment I thought the toilet issues had somehow spread like a wildfire and were now ruining the sink's plumbing (totally rational, right) - but then I realized it was just water from the overfilled sink that had streamed down there.  Oops.

At this point, getting to work even close to on time was a lost cause.  The cabinet below the sink needed to be emptied out, dried, and ruined items thrown away (needed to be done anyway, just wasn't planning on doing it at 9am on a Tuesday morning).  Made a trip down to the dumpster to throw away the trash, managed to step in dog doo (because apparently some people can't be bothered to clean up after their dogs) and unfortunately didn't notice the dog poo until I'd tracked it all over the carpet in our house.

The day did get better - exponentially better, in fact.  My wonderful neighbor Georgia took pity on me and drove me to work, saving me from the bus and Metro and getting me to my office in record time.  My flights that day were relatively smooth and on time.  And by the end of the day I was in AZ with my family for Thanksgiving.  And, of course, when we got home, Mr. Sweetie was able to fix the toilet problem in literally 5 seconds.  Of course.