It's Time To Stop And Smell Something

I am an extremely patient guy.
When we were standing in line and God was handing out patience, I got a double helping. But an even stronger quality of mine is how amazingly nice I am - my niceness far outweighs my patience.
Oh - and humility! Don't even get me started on that...

The last seven days, however, have tested my patience and my kindness in a way I have never experienced before.

It began last weekend with the sewer backing up again into my basement. I recently told you how my father in law assisted me - or rather I assisted him - in de-clogging the main sewer line that runs from my house out to the street. Well - 3 weeks later the problem was back, but worse. I was forced to move my family out of the house for 3 days until the problem was taken care.
Taking care of the problem, in short, involved rodding out the sewer line a second time, and hiring a large man, with a booger hanging out his nose, to come and pump out a giant hole we discovered next to my house containing all the sacrifices my family and I had offered to the sewer gods over the last 3 weeks. The hole is approximately 6 feet deep and is designed to take the nasty bits, and drain them into a pipe that carries them happily on their way to the city sewer. Apparently the hole was clogged near the bottom and had filled to about a foot from the top.
Yummy.

When my new sewer sucking, booger toting friend departed - I expected to return to my basement and find my problem resolved.

Not so much... my basement was still a cesspool.

After a few hours of tracing pipes, and a prayer of supplication to the sewer gods - I discovered an entirely separate drainage system on the opposite side of my house that was the source of the back up. I took my hand powered sewer snake and began rodding out the newly discovered pipes.
In moments I was pulling black and rotting tree roots from the pipes. Unfortunately I mangled the sewer snake beyond recognition before my job was complete and had to run to the hardware store to purchase a new one.
Once again - I rodded and poked and pulled at the sewer snake until the gods gave up one long, loud gurgle. At last - the dark waters receded from my basement.

The remainder of the day was spent bleaching every inch of the basement floor and returning my family to our beautiful home.

So then it was back to work on Tuesday, where I am spearheading a rather aggressive project involving online conferencing technology and a British woman confined to a wheel chair who abhors the thought of using online conferencing technology.

Again - I am the nicest and most patient person in the world, making me the most qualified for such a task.

Wednesday, I was provided a car and sent to her residence to deliver a tutorial and familiarize her with said technology - but 6 hours later I had not even scraped the surface of her understanding.

You see - given the fact that I am the nicest guy in the world, and that she sensed that - I was immediately dispatched to carry out such tasks for her as retrieving her misplaced reading glasses, let the dog out to relieve itself, connect her wireless network router, fetch her a ginger ale, and my favorite - help carry her in her wheel chair up an uneven sidewalk.

5 o'clock arrived with the realization that I had not yet used the restroom or eaten lunch. I decided it was time to leave when she asked me to try on a pair of cut off jean shorts...

Complicating things even more was the fact that I had forgotten about Mrs. Chronically Insane's hair appointment. No one stands between Mrs. Chronically Insane and her getting her hairs did!

Her appointment was in an hour - and I was in Evanston, in rush hour traffic, and about an hour away from home. I drove home as fast as I could to take over with the kids. She decided to take Girl, and the 2 of them raced off to her appointment.

15 minutes later, she called me in tears, to tell me the stylist didn't show up that day and they had cancelled her appointment - but neglected to inform her of that. My wife doesn't often get her hair done and she had made this appointment over a month before.

She decided a small shopping spree was in order to make her feel better... I disagreed, but didn't have the heart to tell her so.

Have I mentioned I am the nicest and most patient guy in the world??

I'm Having A Hard Time Making Lemonade

If nothing else, I always try to look on the brighter side of things, to find the silver lining... But lately, life just seems to be handing me a lot more lemons than I know what to do with.

I have definitely had rougher patches in my life, it's just that I notice what seems to be a steady degradation in things in general.

Metra has been consistently later each morning and the bus drivers consistently slower. Where before, I was arriving to work by 8:30 each morning, now I'm arriving at work at 8:45 to 8:50. I haven't changed my routine at all.

I have been trying to exercise more and eat healthier - and yet my waistline is expanding a little more every month.

The weather has become increasingly unpredictable. Yesterday was 50 degrees and mild. Today it's in the 30's and we're having hurricane force winds.

The battery life in my mp3 player isn't what it used to be. I used to get 3 days on one charge - now I'm lucky to get 1 day. It's just awful!

My little pity party came to a climax last night as I sat in my Lazyboy ( which is only 2 months old and has developed a squeak ) watching History Channel. The program that was on was explaining how for centuries, even millenia, people have been accurately predicting certain cataclysmic events such as the Bubonic plague, the World Wars, the terrorist attack on New York, the terrorist attack in London, Hurricane Katrina and much, much more!

One such terrible, earth shattering event has been predicted for 2012 - Dooms Day.

Perhaps the most disheartening part of all this, was the prediction of how a large portion of the world once lived in will one day be completely submerged by water. The narrator immediately launched into a series of scientific facts supporting this theory by explaining how global warming is responsible for the polar ice caps melting at a rate faster than ever recorded before. The more the earth warms, the more it tips on its axis causing the alignment of the planets to get thrown out of whack.
In short - one of the planets will end up hurdling towards the Sun destined for certain destruction - and chances are it's the one closest to the Sun. Hmmm... let's see - who would that be???

I've had Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" sitting next to my television for 2 weeks now and I still haven't gotten the courage up to watch it. I think I'll be waiting at least another 2 weeks before I do...