I'm Literally on the Swamp Boat
or When it was My Turn to Call the Power Company...
This year we had an all-girls Father’s Day. Father and son have been off on a Scouting high adventure trip, planned more than a year ago. Mother, daughter and dog were meant to hold down the fort. I am a relatively capable person, so I had hoped to make it longer than a day before throwing my hands up. But the universe can be unfriendly, and optimism can be foolish…
The boys left the house before 5am last Saturday. By the afternoon, the girl had me reconsidering my stance (no!) on allowing her to have Instagram. By evening we were at the mall where I was talked into a push-up that everyone is wearing from Victoria’s Secret, plus some cute summer tank tops that show exactly why everyone is wearing said push-up. As a Father’s Day gift, I waited to tell K about this. Now she is mortified, he is feeling protective, and I might be in trouble.
With no fathers in the house to wake up and honor, we slept in until 11 am last Sunday. Even the dog slept this late since she takes Daddy’s side of the bed when he isn’t there. We quickly discovered that the Wi-Fi was down, and M learned that this impedes your ability to binge Friends via a streaming service. Thank goodness for 5G since the outage was a long one, caused by knuckleheads trying to steal Spectrum’s fiber optic cable thinking it would be a good source of copper.
Later that day, in a moment of weakness, I selected to approve the request for Instagram from the app store. I had been holding out so long. “You can just allow 15 minutes a day,” she begged, like a new smoker certain she will only need one cigarette daily. In her first few days, she clicked follow on too many accounts at a rapid clip, making Instagram think she was a bot. As a second Father’s Day gift, I waited to tell K about this too. Now she is waiting for her account to unlock, he is feeling even more protective, and maybe I should be in trouble.
Around the time the Wi-Fi came back on Sunday night, we lost power to half of the house. Kitchen, front room, dining, room, master bedroom, bathroom and garage – out. Family room, office, M’s room, second bathroom, laundry room – on. Even though kitchen power was out, many of the kitchen appliances started to beep. We wondered about a ghost. I unplugged beeping things, I texted friends for encouragement, I went outside to mess with the breakers. No luck, but at least a good suggestion to plug in the fridge with an extension cord to save the food. By the time we’d dug in the dark garage for the cord and pulled out the fridge, it was 2 am.
Sleep was scarce that night. I woke up at 4 am on Monday and saw text responses from K. At 4:30 I walked the house sweating and realized the A/C was down too. At 5, I called K for support. Dog and I slept fitfully until 8 when she wanted to eat and go out. Unfortunately, the lack of power meant that I couldn’t disarm our home alarm. More texts to K who had practical advice like call the alarm company. My response – do you happen to have the number – was met with, “I’m literally on the swamp boat.” He had already tried to disarm remotely and call himself. Finally, I just opened the door, and luckily no power meant no alarm. She was thrilled to get outside. He was feeling exasperated. I was trouble.
I managed to find our LADWP account number and put in a ticket. I worked remotely to be home for the wide arrival window. Arrival was of course five minutes into an important meeting that I was supposed to be leading in person but was instead doing by zoom. Thankfully my team pitched in as I got up to open the door and later got kicked off the zoom entirely as DWP flipped the breaker switches. They sent out another team in the late afternoon, who interrupted another zoom but then shimmied up the pole behind our house and restored power.
M and I muscled through the rest of the week. She made it to most of her swim practices. I attended most of my meetings. Entertainment was binged (M watched another season of Friends, while I finished 2 audio books and a puzzle). In the end, she did not eat a lot of vegetables. I did not finish the lonely sock match-up project that I started last Saturday. The dog was left home alone on two consecutive beach days. We all three stayed up too late every night.
On Monday night, Father and Son return home. K will notice that there isn’t much food in the house and wonder what we ate. M will soon have the opportunity to fill up on fresh veggies again. I will welcome them home and, just like the dog, hope that my enthusiasm for their return is enough to prevent me from being in too much trouble for the ridiculous ways I manage the household in their absence. Maybe next year, I’ll do Father’s Day with the father. In the meantime, I just got a request from the girl for more screen time on Instagram…
