Why I Should Never Own a House

My parents have always told me I am hard on things- clothes, toys, furniture, parents, you name it, I guarantee I can wear it out long before its supposed to. I can't really help it. No really, I can't. It takes all my concentration to not jerk my foot around on the gas pedal while driving the car- so much concentration that I can't pay attention to anything else around me. This drives most of my passengers absolutely crazy. The only one who doesn't notice this seems to be James. He grew up with my driving. Heck, he will probably do the same thing when he takes driving lessons- I bet he thinks its normal.

I will attempt to suck up anything- and I mean anything with a vacuum- loose change, hair elastics, cat food, dirty clothes, plastic toys. Its amusing to me, and well, any way you can make house cleaning amusing, specifically vacuuming, seems worth it to me. This is probably why the only vacuum that works for me is a 1970s Kirby model. I don't think you could kill it if you tried.

I tried to destroy our disposal with black plastic SD card a couple weeks ago. Ok, that was totally an accident, no I didn't see it fall in there. But I guess that is my point- I am hard on things simply by being around them long enough.

Fortunately for me, the disposal is covered by our rental agency. Our washing machine is not. We bought it less than 2 years ago, and already I managed to basically alter the entire integrity of the machine. I know its me, Jay knows its me, but we don't like to point fingers, its not nice. Last week it quite spinning. Just like that. No more spin, just dripping wet towels and blankets. I should have seen this coming with the pounding sound its been making every time I do laundry, but I just ignored it and put more queen sized blankets in.

I have yet to plumb the depths of Jay's knowledge of appliances, and maybe he makes stuff up as he goes along, but when things break he never ceases to amaze me in his ability to fix them. He hauled the washer out to the garage and soon had it in chunks all over the floor. This made me very nervous. I have never seen a person take a washing machine apart with the intention of putting it back together again. I decided I might be better off not watching him butcher my favorite machine, so I went back inside. He came in periodically to give me an update.

At one point he walked in with large two plastic rings and announced he found the problem. I could have told him the problem- the problem was the washing machine didn't work and no amount of swearing or pounding on it on my part had fixed it. Actually the problem was the machine had gotten off kilter and the plastic rings had melted and fused together. Or something like that. Wow, I don't think I have ever melted an appliance before.

Not only did he find the problem, he fixed it, AND put the washer back together again, all in one night. I was suitably impressed- possibly more by the fact that he put the washer back together than anything else.

So now I have my beloved washer back, but I have to consider it something of an invalid, permanently compromised, and probably incapable of ever washing a large blanket, 2 pillows, and several large towels all at once ever again.

I think James may have inherited this trait from me. That trait, mixed with natural toddler curiosity, is destroying my house. I caught him last week moments before he tried heating a can of chicken soup in the microwave. He was the one who put that black SD card in the sink in the first place. He also has a reputation for putting popsicle sticks in the vacuum cleaner, then when I turn it on, they all get jammed in the rotor. I had to replace the rotor once for that reason.

A month or so ago he put his plastic "Tappy the Turtle" in the oven, I think he was making turtle pizza. I didn't know it was in there, so I preheated the oven for dinner and roasted little Tappy- who is about a foot in diameter. His green feet oozed over my oven rack, and I just managed to scoop the rest of him onto a pizza pan and outside before he destroyed my entire oven. Thanks a lot James.

Some of you may have heard about the house painting incident as well. Or the "sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night and trying to make oatmeal" incident. I am just interested to see who accidentally burns down the house first- me or James.