Thank you for allowing me to breathe. Very nice of you.

That being said, I do not appreciate it when my would-be quiet Monday gets inundated with more crap than a crap-flinging monkey can handle. Not that I am a crap-flinging monkey, although today I wish I was because I would have been able to handle the pile of it a little easier.

I had intended on a very quiet day in my life, Life. But that's not how you roll, is it? No. You like to pull punches when when people don't expect it. Bam! Right to the kidney!

This morning I woke up and it was cold. The furnace fan wasn't working. I sent the boys to school and the biggest boy to work and proceeded to call our repair guy. We have a service contract, you know. One that covers things like broken furnace fans, except when it doesn't.

The furnace fan had broken because it was not big enough to do the job. So we had to get a bigger one in order to meet the minimum manufacturer requirements. That's when we discovered that our service plan doesn't cover the bigger model. So we had to shell out the difference in cost. $136. Not too bad, I suppose, but it still hurt. Life, you may remember giving poor Nat a hard time recently to the tune of over $500. I don't know why don't like her. She's very nice and she even likes Rockband. Why did you do that to her? You're such a jerk.

Anyway, if that was all that went on today I wouldn't be writing you this letter of complaint. But there was more crap to fling my way, wasn't there? For, while the furnace tech was downstairs doing his furnacy-techy stuff, I heard him call to me quite urgently. When I came downstairs there was a flood of what looked like steaming hot water gushing from the ceiling.

Except the water was green, and smelly, and it was coming from a pipe.

We have an oil/electric bi-energy furnace. So, when the fan died in the middle of the night, you, Life, decided a funny joke would be to cause the electric part of the furnace to overheat and spew green phlegm (or antifreeze) all over the basement floor and all over the furnace.

We shut breakers off.

We grabbed mops.

We prayed nothing shorted out.

I wondered if my will was up to date as I stepped in liquid and wires.

Anyway, that all seems to be resolved now. Between the furnace tech (who I've now spent enough time with to consider one of my best friends), my husband and dad, we've hopefully sorted everything out.

But, Life, you just had to throw in a couple of other things for good measure, didn't you? Because my quiet Monday couldn't simply get rocked by some waves, it had to be torpedoed out of the bloody ocean.

Having to shell out the money to fix the furnace made Geekster take a closer look at our finances. What did he see? That we may be in a bit of trouble. Again. So apparently I'm going to have to actually make some cashola with this writing thing now. I was hoping I wouldn't have to be a world-famous author for at least another few years. Why do these things always happen when I'm not ready? Why can't I sit on the couch and eat bon-bons a little longer?

And the other thing? It appears you're trying to make me learn something about myself by placing me in or around situations which I find difficult not to judge. Why do you do that to me? Couldn't you, like, put me in a room full of puppies instead? What is there to judge about puppies? They might pee on my clothes, but I can't really fault them for that.

So then I had to apologize to this friend I haven't been very supportive of. Ick. I hate apologizing. It means I'm wrong. I tried to take the easy way out first. I suggested she just find a newer, better friend, but apparently she's not going to do that. I could even give her names of nicer people to spend time with to make the transition easier. Ones who don't have an Evil Ego Maven housed in the cellar, undoubtedly pissed off and reactive because she's covered in antifreeze.

Life, you're making it pour when I didn't even want a drizzle today. Thankfully I have a coffee date planned with Jobthingy tomorrow, who's always down with my dysfunction. She'll set me straight over a latte. And Coffee Fairy? She had words with me today, too. Put me on the straight an narrow. She buttered me up with coffee and homemade muffins first, though. Thank goodness for tell-it-like-it-is friends. They always send Evil Ego Maven back into her cage.

So I dealt with being cold, mopping up antifreeze, spending money I don't have on things I didn't want to spend money on, being a bitch, and being set straight.

I need to go drown myself in a stiff latte tonight. Life, you are not invited. Not unless you're buying.

Resentfully yours (but I'll get over it),
The Maven