Much of the time, I think the internet is a horrible place. People are nasty and cruel. They spew filth and lies and bully one another. Take for instance, the Stanford male who assaulted an unconscious woman. People are jumping to his defense left and right. Despicable.
Or, in my home state of Ohio, all I've heard about is the gorilla incident at the Cincinnati Zoo. What a terrible situation -- a tragedy, to be sure. But I hear fewer voices mourning the loss of the gorilla and praising the rescue of the child and more voice accusing this person and that person, pointing fingers, using hateful and hurtful language. Disheartening.
So, you see, I have very little faith in the people of the internet.
But I forgot that I have very good taste in picking out friends (romantic interests, not so much).
To understand this story, you should know that I've spent the last two years living with my best friend. It was lovely and perfect because we were like souls, my kids loved her, and we rented, so whenever anything broke, I called the repairman. Mike (yes, we were on a first name basis. I miss him terribly) came out on several occasions. My electric wiring was all messed up in the master bedroom, and he helped fix it. I shattered the bottom panel of glass in the refrigerator; Mike saved the day. Dishwasher backed up again -- Who you going to call? Mike!
My time with my best friend and roommate sadly came to an end one week ago, and I was forced ("happily chose" just doesn't convey the right tone) to move back into the marital residence that I'd been renting out the past three years (more about this in a later blog -- so. many. feelings.). So I lost my home for the past two years, my best friend (to Texas), and MIKE! I lost Mike.
Now, when things break, I'm responsible. You think that, at 30, I'd be okay with that. Nope! Not handling it well.
So, the first thing I noticed was the dishwasher had water pooled in the bottom. Yuck. I thought that if I restarted it, ran another cycle, maybe that would do a trick. It did not. It turns out that the dishwasher is an appliance, not a smart phone. My bad. I reached out to my internet friends, found a repairman, and he fixed it the next day. Well, that wasn't so bad. I can talk on the phone to people if it will fix my appliances.
The next thing I noticed was the upstairs toilet seat and lid were coming off the toilet. It was a minor issue at first, but then my little tenants, as I've decided to refer to them, tried to stand on it to brush their teeth (note to self: buy some bathroom stools online after you've finished blogging). Broken.
I didn't know where to start. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I sincerely asked my mom if I needed to buy a whole new toilet (you can laugh here, I'll be okay). After my mother informed me that I could just buy the seat and lid, I left the kids with her and jetted off to the store. It was like a little vacation. I found the aisle I was looking for and guessed at the size of my toilet. I hesitantly made my purchase. But what if I couldn't follow through?
After dinner with my parents, I headed home and corralled my children into their room to get ready for bed. We put on jammies, read books, and said prayers. They were thirsty... and needed covers... and just one more hug and kiss. The usual. Then, I said, "Mommy's got work to do." This is usually code for "Mommy is going downstairs to watch Netflix and eat junk food you don't know about," but not this time. Mama had real work to do. And I got to it.
Let me tell you, working on a toilet is not glamorous. It doesn't matter how clean you are, it's still pretty gross, especially when you have to have your face in close proximity to it, as I did. The old seat and lid were so old that the screws and bolts had broken and would not come out by unscrewing them, so I had to use all my upper body strength (which is nothing to brag about) to break them off. Once everything was removed, I did some cleaning and reminded two little spectators to get back into bed. Then I had to install the new seat and lid, which was relatively easy.
I was so proud. It looked so pretty. I told my kids, and they didn't care. It pained me to see my hard work go unnoticed and unappreciated. So I decided to take a picture and share it with the people of the internet:
I was blown away. I had written my post mostly trying to be witty, but people were so kind and encouraging. It was just lovely. Some days as a (single) parent are hard. You wonder if things will ever get easier. You wonder if you're equipped to handle all of these tasks alone. My cheerleaders tonight assured me that yes, in fact, I can and am handling it! And they proved that they will be there to cheer on my successes. What a wonderful feeling. The people of the internet have redeemed themselves today. At least, my friends on the internet.
I call that a win. Now, I'm off to bed....right after I research bathroom stools online.