A plague o' both your houses

I'm pretty sure a big flood is coming. Like, of Biblical proportions.

First my vacuum cleaner erupts in flames. And the front yard sprinklers go haywire. Then my bathroom sink backs up, leaving all of that phlegmy toothpaste just swirling around in there like wisps of cotton candy at the county fair. I'm gagging a little bit just envisioning it. Now the pilot light has gone out on my water heater, for the second time this month. Yesterday's shower rivaled the one I took with a garden hose in some Indiana campground the morning after a Dead show in the summer of '94. . .

What was I saying?

Oh, we're filthy. I can't vacuum, which means that I can't dust or mop, lest I just push the nastiness around in haphazard rows like seaweed washed up on shore. I won't shower, which means that I can't exercise (possibly my most legitimate excuse to date). And I can't do laundry, because haven't you ever seen those magnified dust mites that won't die unless you wash them on "scalding?"

So we're sleeping on vermin-infested sheets, clothing and musty towels are piling up in every corner and black dog hairs are wafting across the hardwood like tumbleweeds. Five days in, and Bugglehubby hasn't noticed yet. But I'm finding myself gazing across the living room with the theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly playing in my head.

I've started urging the kids to go play out in the garage, where it's cleaner.

On the bright side (isn't therapy special?), I've had a bit of time on my hands. In addition to the positively rampant posting herein, Monday I replastered all of our ceilings in the rococo style. Yesterday I disproved string theory and built an ark, but the squalor is wearying. I'm planning to sail back to the good old days, when my house and I were merely shabby.