There's an adage among Navy spouses that something always breaks when the military member deploys. On one of my father-in-law's deployments the car (and a shipmate's car) had so many problems, the wives put all the broken parts in a box and mailed them to the ship. They enclosed a note telling the guys to figure out which parts went to whose car. It's a fun memory, and a great way to deal with an annoying situation. When Sean left just before last Passover two things happened, I immediately came down with food poisoning, incapacitating me for three days, and the oven temperature wouldn't regulate. The food poisoning passed, and we figured out the oven problem just after Sean returned, but as I said it's always something.
Sean and I have been taking bets on what major appliance will go when he leaves. I was prepared for anything, so I thought. We're eighteen days into the deployment, and the first thing has broken (well except for the iron I dropped, but I didn't like that appliance anyway). Good money was on the oven baking its last challah with a close second to the dishwasher. The bedroom TV was running a close third. We were wrong. While the TV has a tendency to turn on and off by itself, it's hanging in there.
Tonight the kids and I attended a Safam concert at Beth Tikvah synagogue. Safam has been playing together for 36 years this winter. I've been listening to them for almost 30. The kids have been raised on their music. We have a Halloween tradition of doing something special as a family that gets us out of the house. The Safam concert was just perfect. Jesse sang along to all the songs, as did I. Gavi and Keren knew a fair share. Jesse bought the Safam Anthology, and got all their autographs. It was a lovely night. We arrived home just before 10:30, pulled into the garage, got out of the car, and nothing. The garage door isn't working.
In all our discussions of what might break, never did we mention the garage door opener. So much for being prepared. This first happened last week, right after I broke the iron and gave myself a black eye. I mentioned it to Sean. He said, "Yeah, that happens sometimes." Interesting that he never mentioned it. Last week it wasn't such a big deal. The door was shut, and the car on the outside. Tonight the door was stuck open at 10:30 PM. It couldn't stay open. I knew to manually close it I had to release it from the electric opener, the question was how. After some doing, I was able to disconnect the garage door opener from the door. I locked up the bicycles, since we never got the key to the garage door when we bought the house (it was long lost), and I closed the door. It's done now, but our door also lacks a handle on the outside. I cannot reopen it, because I can't get a proper grip. So tomorrow I have to search out garage door repair. Goody.
There you go. One broken appliance, seven months to go. It's always something.
