Our Un-Vacation

This week's words filter, squash, sour, dancing, muscle, breakthrough, from Delores of The Feathered Nest actually fit in with my frame of mind. Genius!

Why is it whenever you go on holiday, everything back home disintegrates?

It’s true.

The world waits for your vehicle to clear the driveway.

Then it falls apart.

Case in point . . .

My Husby and I were recently on our much-anticipated annual pilgrimage to the Great Canadian North Woods with our good friends.

All was well for the first 24 hours.

Then my phone buzzed.

I know, I know. Why did I take my phone with me on holiday?!

First mistake.

Moving on . . .

It started out innocently enough:

Tiana: Is it pouring out there? It sure is here!

Me: It is!!!

Then . . .

Tiana: My floor is all wet. Something tells me the wall shouldn’t look like this…

Tiana spent the next day keeping us apprised of her dance around puddles, cutting out drywall, arranging fans, breathing sour air, moving upstairs.

I spent the day worrying.

Then . . .

Tiana: Unrelatedly: the pool is almost 2 feet lower than it was yesterday…?

Somehow, we had lost 100 gallons of water. Our new vinyl pool was suddenly looking like a squashed tomato.

Me: Did it split somewhere? Is it lower than the filter? Maybe you should unplug it.

She could find nothing wrong, but again, I spent the day worrying.

Sigh.

Then, from our daughter-in-law:

Barb: Our van overheated. We had it towed in to Canadian Tire. It’s going to cost $3300.00 to fix.

This on a van that not even worth $2000.00.

Oh, no! How will they be able to afford a new van? They just bought a house . . . Okay, yes, it was their problem, but I worry.

Then . . .

Barb: I passed out yesterday. Caitlin is over, looking after the kids. I’m really sick.

You know the saying, ‘It never rains but it pours’?

Well, it was definitely raining. And pouring.

More worrying.

Somehow, our kids managed to muscle through.

And Husby’s and my seven little days of ‘vacation’ ended.

Since we got home, all has been quiet.

The kids bought a new (to them) van for a very good deal and our daughter-in-law is once more healthy and happy.

The bedroom (minus a large chunk of drywall) is dried out and our daughter happily re-entrenched.

And the pool has been refilled following a lengthy inspection which turned up nothing.

So what happened?

For our daughter in law? Broken vans, kids and heat and worry.

The soaked bedroom and the leaky pool? I had a breakthrough. I realized that the pool cover had become so full during that rainstorm that it had forced one side of the pool down and flushed out a great wave of water.

That had inundated our daughter’s room.

Both problems were actually the same problem.

The solution?

We do have one! We’ll never go on vacation again.

It’s too exhausting. J