My husband and I are big Ohio State football fans.  Typically, we watch the games on Saturday together in our family room.  Occasionally we are actually at a stadium either here or away.  It’s always a great day, although better when we win, of course.  For forty years now, I’ve not had too much of a problem keeping the games straight.

               Let me pat myself on the back for a second to mention that this – keeping the games straight – is no easy feat.  Because while I only care about and watch the Ohio State game, my husband watches every Big Ten game that is on television and at least one or two others.  Because, as he can explain much better than I, these games have some impact on Ohio State’s ratings and future game outcomes.  Or something like that.

               This means that during timeouts, commercials, and before or after games, the remote is hotly used to switch to a variety of other games to “check out the scores.” And, as I say, for forty years, I’ve kept up admirably.

               That came to a screeching halt a couple of Saturdays ago.  It was Ohio State’s homecoming game and they were playing the Maryland Terrapins.  Our colors are scarlet and gray.  Maryland’s colors are red and something else.  We were wearing red and they were wearing white.

               Meanwhile, Nebraska, wearing white was playing at Minnesota, whose team was decked out in a brownish color.  But the Nebraska fans were largely wearing red, since that’s their other color.

               So before our game started, my husband was switching back and forth to the Nebraska game.  Red and white.  Both games.  All over the field and in the stands. Meanwhile, I was texting on my phone.

               I looked up at the television screen and remarked, “Gosh, there’s a lot of red in the stands.”  My husband smiled and said, “Of course, it’s our homecoming.”  To which I replied, “But isn’t that Nebraska?”

               He looked at me oddly for a second and said, “Well yes, but their colors are red and white.”

               After watching a few more seconds, I said, “Wow, isn’t that great?  We brought the band to the game!”

               That really did get me a strange look.  “Of course the band is there,” he replied.  “It’s our stadium.  We’re at home.”

               Naturally, this would have been more easily deciphered if I hadn’t been texting and looking at my phone periodically.  Because of this, I wasn’t noticing when he changed channels – which apparently he was doing every four or five seconds. 

               That’s when the short-term recall and the general blonde ditziness really came to a peak.

               “I’m puzzled,” I said, staring stupidly at the television.  “Usually it says ‘Ohio State’ in the end zone.  Why did they put ‘Minnesota’ on there this week?”

               That really did get me a totally bizarre look.  Plus hand gestures indicating I had delved deeply into the dumb zone.  “This is Nebraska- Minnesota,” he said with a slightly exasperated tone. “What aren’t you getting?  This is our homecoming.  We’re at home.  Playing Maryland.”

               With that, he changed the channel to the important game.  I was no longer confused.  And if I was – well, I certainly wasn’t going to ask a question or make a comment.  I just watched us win. And I believe I may have seen Minnesota win, as well.  But not going to ask that, either.

               It’s not unusual for any household to have the occasional mishap.  Things get lost, broken, or used incorrectly all the time.  But this week, we’ve had a number of these occasions that have led me to walk around on eggshells. Not literally, but you know what I mean.

               It all started with the piano stool. It’s an older stool that we had placed in front of a vintage upright grand piano that belonged to my husband’s great-great grandmother. Or great-great aunt.  Well, somebody in his family long, long ago.  It’s really pretty and it’s also incredibly huge.  We took it so that no one would burn it or throw it away, but we already had two pianos – the one I bought in my 20’s and the one my husband’s mom left us when she passed away.  So three pianos being two too many, we gave the upright grand to our niece.  Then this week, we discovered the piano stool that always sat in front of it.

               No problem, I thought.  We’ll pass that along, as well.  But before we did that, I decided to sit on it to see if it was a bit better than the bench we use on Mom’s piano. 

               It may have been better at one time, but we’ll never know.  The stool collapsed in about six pieces the minute I tried to sit on it.  Thankfully, I had not placed my full weight on the stool and was able to quickly stand upright, so the pieces fell to the floor but I did not.  These pieces are now up at the burn pile.

               Then a few days later, we decided to clean out the basement.  Two hundred Ball jars later (and I’m not exaggerating), I had boxes and boxes of jars in the kitchen to wash.  Several dozen of these were so damaged that they could not be cleaned or saved.  We managed to clean and box 70 for a dear friend who cans, and 60 for a niece who cans, and saved about 20 for ourselves (in case I ever find myself wanting a terribly hot hobby that results in yummy food). 
               Of course, it wouldn’t be normal for me to wash a lot of glassware without breaking a piece.  I did, in fact, only break one jar, and in cleaning it up, naturally I cut my finger.  The tip of a finger, which meant keeping a bandaid on it was nearly impossible.  But, it healed in a day or two.

               My husband cleaned the whole house three days later.  I will never complain about this in any way – it’s amazing and I love that he does this!  In cleaning the downstairs bathroom, he placed the scale in the shower to clean the floor.

               To be fair, the scale hasn’t really weighed accurately in several years, so it’s not a big prize in our house. 

               And it was I who turned on the shower without looking and drenched the scale. 

               Now the scale weighs incredibly inaccurately.  Or it doesn’t if I gained ten and a half pounds overnight.  The one thing I do not need in my life is a scale that weighs heavy. Nobody needs that kind of stress.

               So, if these things come in threes, then our household mishaps should be over – at least for a while!

Let me begin with a disclaimer – we are totally satisfied with our current security system. We’ve been with it for nearly 20 years and it covers both homes we own.  But there have been…well incidents, shall we say?  These events have made us question the system, customer service in general, and our sanity. 

First, the system at our second house is digital.  The home is a one-story, ranch style and there are a couple of places the alarm might sound.  When the alarm does go off – and we discovered this the scary way – it’s impossible to shut it down.  Well, it’s impossible when you forgot the password because you haven’t used it in over twelve years.

Our son lives in the house and one night the fire alarm went off.  This was because the microwave malfunctioned and was pouring smoke into the house.  He had unplugged the thing (which subsequently made the trip to the dump) and attempted to cancel the alarm.  Meanwhile, he was opening windows and turning on fans.  Also meanwhile, we got the “back-up” call and raced to the house.  The fire department likely also got called.  Our son was on the phone trying to tell the representative to cancel the fire department as nothing was aflame.

Thankfully, he accomplished that.  But she kept insisting he put in the code, which he didn’t remember.  Neither did we. FINALLY, my husband remembered what it was and told her the password, so she could end the screeching alarm.  It took almost as long to get that alarm silenced as it did for us to wave the smoke out of the kitchen.

The good news on that horrible event is tri-fold.  We know the alarm system works.  We know the back-up call works.  And I got to go shopping for a new microwave.

Then we began to get calls and emails about upgrading our own system to digital.  We happily had the technician come out to install it, as digital has to be better, right?  Well, maybe so, but it turns out that digital technology is no match for 18-inch thick stone walls built in 1811.  The digital system was “iffy” in terms of covering our whole house. So we’re stuck with a landline system (that works just fine, so no big deal).

But the calls and emails continued, telling us our service will end if we don’t address this upgrade.  So we had a second technician come out.  He, too, could not get the digital system to work, so we’re off the list to notify about upgrading.

Not.  We still got calls and emails, with that scary little “service will end” clause. Finally, my husband got a call and asked to speak to a supervisor.  He was put on hold and transferred after about ten minutes.  This was not a supervisor, but he told the person the whole story and was put on hold and transferred.  The third person was also not a supervisor, but he told them the whole story…you’re getting the picture, right?  He was on the phone for an hour (listening, while on hold, to the pre-recorded message of “your time is important to us”).  I do love me some irony.

The fifth person finally told him we’d be okay with our “old” system and we wouldn’t get any more calls.  Then they sent us a survey.

That was fun.

 Actually, the survey resulted in a wonderful representative calling us to explain everything, assure us we’d get no more phone calls or emails, and assure us our “old” (but reliable) system would continue to work forever.  Or at least for our lifetimes, which is just as good.