Oh HAHA. Very funny, Karma

Every month, for the past several months, something major has broken in my house. In April , it was the hot water heater; discovered by the guy installing new satellite internet for me. He was kind enough to point out that I had a foot and a half of water in my crawl space and it was rising. A Johnny Cash song immediately started playing in my head: How high's the water, Momma? She said three feet high and rising. Of course, I had no man support at the time. 'Mater was in South Carolina and my dad was out teaching so I resorted to Panic Mode, which involved me running in circles and waving my arms in the air. It's great for relieving tension but doesn't get much solved.

I don't understand plumbing. I don't know how to turn the water off to the hot water heater and I really, REALLY don't like standing in the crawl space with muddy water swirling around my ankles. You just don't know what the hell is in there. Snakes, spiders, The Thing - it's all possible.

June saw my dishwasher go kaput. I used my yard sale money to buy a new one. Lowe's was delivering it and would take away my old dishwasher except the broken one didn't get disconnected. Being the fabulous independent woman I am, I figured I could look up instructions online on how to disconnect a dishwasher and do it myself. Wrong. Very wrong. I learned that I do suck at plumbing and that the Lowe's delivery guys don't care if you are near tears in your kitchen and have water leaking everywhere. They will not help you disconnect your old dishwasher so that you can have it removed and stop the water from leaking all over your floor. I mean, really!! The dogs can only drink up so much water before they become bloated and there are only so many towels that I can put down before I admit defeat.

My fervent wish for July was that nothing would break in the house and I could save the $money I had been shelling out every month for new appliances. What a stupid wish. Don't ever wish it yourself. What I ended up with was a $300 vet bill for Wyatt the dog who managed to get a puncture wound in his leg running through the bamboo forest in the neighbor's yard. Damn Vietcong. The best part of that evening, upon returning from the emergency vet's office, was watching a huge storm roll through our area and seeing lightning strike the house...which fried the satellite TV .

This is what I have learned:  Plumbing makes me cry but I now know how to turn my water off thanks to my fabulous plumber who instructed me to flip the switch on my breaker box. Electricity, I can do. Along with following verbal directions such as, "Flip the switch in the breaker box that says 'water' ". Pfft. I OWN you water! The lesson here is that the Appliance Gods are mighty and don't wish against them or you end up spending your money fixing your dog who was injured by Vietnam Era technology and watching old Clint Eastwood movies because you don't get satellite TV anymore.