Series of Unfortunate Events

This has been one, weird week for me. It all started Sunday night, when we were awakened from sound sleep by blaring smoke detectors house-wide. After determining there was no fire, we replaced batteries, pressed reset buttons, tried everything we could think of. But, just when we would get the alarms to stop, one would start up again. Todd finally cut the wiring and yanked out the thought-to-be offending detector, and that stopped things long enough for us to get a couple hours of sleep, but the alarms started again the next morning.

Half-awake in the dead of night, I was Googling the problem on my phone. There are long, online threads dedicated to the issue of "hard-wired smoke detectors going off continuously." While most of the "solutions" were things we'd already tried, I did get a chuckle out of one post: "If you have tried all these other possibilities and the alarms are still going off, that is proof of another presence in your home. If this is a problem for you, burn some sage in every corner of your home to cleanse it of the offending spirits. You should welcome the alarms as a reminder we are not alone. "

Oh, thanks.

Still, the alarms were just the beginning of my bizarre and troubling encounters. On Monday, Benjamin and I were delayed nearly 90 minutes at the cardiologist's office. Ben's routine echocardiogram took forever, and I was certain the doctor was going to deliver some unexpected news, but, no, his ticker is right on track. And, Ben, was, too, until we pulled into the driveway at home. He started whimpering and I knew something was up. As I tried to turn to check on him, I cranked the car right into the side of the garage. The car is fine-- tiny scratch-- but there is a hole in the side of the garage.

Ben threw up. Even though I knew he had probably just fallen asleep and gotten disoriented and carsick, I kept him home for the required 24 hours. Ben was jumping on the couch 10 minutes after it happened, and it was really annoying to have a totally-not-sick kid home for a sick day.

At one point, I walked by an arm chair full of mystery crumbs. I asked Ben to clean up the mess and brought the vacuum cleaner so he could do it. He pulled out the hose, and, before I could stop him, he turned on the vacuum, brush sitting on top of the electrical cord. We had a smoked-out den, a broken vacuum belt and charred carpeting before I could even blink. Luckily, all the smoke detectors had been deactivated, so there were no more pesky alarms.

The next day, I got two unexpected, and overdue, medical bills in the mail. I also did things like drop a whole jar of jelly on the kitchen floor and show up to a meeting with no notes, no books, no agenda. Me. Not the kids-- me.

There have been things like that every hour of this week, I swear.

This evening (Thursday is always our busiest day) we zoomed out of piano lessons because I promised Amanda a stop at the library before it closed to pick up a book she had on hold. The timeline would be close, but I was thinking we had about 10 minutes to spare.

We had about 10 minutes to spare... UNTIL... the railroad crossing arms came down right in front of us. The world's slowest-moving freight train inched on by, along with the minutes. Finally, we could see the end just three cars down... and it stopped. Later, the train cleared the tracks, but, all told, it was about 20 minutes that we sat there, waiting, at those train tracks. Traffic was backed up for blocks. Even if we could have escaped the intersection, every route to the library crossed those tracks, so it was hopeless.

I told Amanda there must be some reason God did not want us to take that road and get to the library tonight. I didn't know what-- a car wreck in the road, a bomb threat at the library, a gas leak, a librarian infected with a communicable disease, a dog needing us at home (all terrible things to bring up to a carload of children, by the way) but we should thank the Lord for keeping us from danger, instead of being upset about not getting the book.

While all this was going on, I was tearing apart the car looking for my cell phone. I wanted it for practical reasons-- to call the police non-emergency number or the railroad to complain, because cars were backed up to the highway and other drivers were more irate than I was. But, no phone. It was not in its usual car slot, not in my purse, not on the seat next to me. I surmised I must have left it at my sister's house and vowed to call her if we ever got out of the railroad bottleneck.

Once home, I called my sister, and told her where to look, but she could not find my phone anywhere. Finally, I told her I would hang up and call the phone if she would listen for the ring. Then, I called her back. "I listened, but I didn't hear it anywhere," she said. "Well, I heard it," I said, "ringing in my pocket."

Is it Friday, yet?