Sometimes you just have to laugh

There are some things in life that are so stupid and/or terrible that you can't help but laugh. This and all the irony seems to be my greatest source of humor nowadays. Sure, I'd much rather laugh with M or make foghorn sounds with a slushy cup at Target, but that's simply not how my life is working right now.

And so I laugh at what I can:

One example just happened earlier this week, but apparently has been in the making since winter. In mid to late December, our heater upstairs broke. Alright, stop there. Let me clarify something. My house is two stories tall. We have two heating/air conditioning units, one for the upstairs and one for the downstairs. Now back to the story. So, our heater upstairs broke in the dead of winter. It wasn't too bad, being upstairs and all. I mean, we had heat downstairs so we weren't shivering as we ate and we just put extra blankets on our beds to sleep comfortably. The only problem was that the parts that were needed to fix the heating unit were being held up for some reason, so we kept on freezing. Finally, in early to mid February, the repair men got the needed part and fixed the heating unit. Of course, by this time in the South, its already warm enough that it wasn't desperately needed.

Then, this week on Sunday, my family and I come home from church to discover that the air conditioner upstairs isn't working. Oh joy! I had already decided that I would never get used to the hot and humid climate down here. It just doesn't make sense that it could be this humid outside with out there being rain involved. Also, it amazes me how cool 90 degrees feels after 6 straight 102 degree days. So, here's the thing. It's been 95 degrees outside all this week, and now I have to sleep upstairs in it. We opened windows and had fans going, but it still didn't get cool enough to really sleep until about 1 am. Fortunately, the repair men gave us an estimate and fixed it within two days (thank God it wasn't any longer than that).

However, the repair men left a wake. While they were installing the new thermostat upstairs, they hit a wire or something, loosing all the electricity in both my brother's room and mine. Zero electricity moving through my room. I just had to laugh. If its not one problem, its bound to be another. So, we had electricians in our house this morning to fix it. At least we didn't have to pay for this. That's a pretty big bonus for us.

Problems like this with our house happen often. Too often. It means that my family is always on their toes. We're always paying off all the appliances that have broken and have had to be replaced. Its very depressing when I stop to think about it. All the irony and unexpected twists of fate are only fun on the most outer levels. For instance, because of all these uninvited issues with everything, we can't afford to do things that actually matter quite a bit. One of those things being driver's education for me. I love to drive and I'm really ready to get my license right now, but I'm required to take the class which is something we simply can't do right now. I think I'm more bitter about it than I'd care to admit. Also, my new church here has a lot of events that go on during the summer. And I mean a lot! But everything costs a money (because most of them are trips). It sort of makes me the red-headed stepchild of the teens there. Its not altogether fun.

Then again, there are always good things. A silver lining if you will. I have a roof over my head (even if its leaking...not really). I have food in my stomach (most of the time, but that's my brother's fault), and I have air in my lungs, a book, some paper, a pen, and my wits about me. I'm sure I can survive on that.

Not to mention the never-ending stream of hysterical humor that gradually keeps moving me towards insanity. XD