Substitute

"Pat" for "Alexander, and the Terrible,

Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst

and you have a good idea of what my Monday was like.

Of course I

woke up late after I mistakenly (Hah!) hit the snooze

button too hard. Clean out of dog food, I was forced to

microwave a couple of Oscar Mayer wieners for the pups.

When I

opened the front door I was stunned to see that my yard

had been transformed into a rushing river. Water was

running everywhere, forcing me to look in the closet for

my waders to investigate the source of the flood. At

least the fashion police were nowhere in sight when I

headed out to the curb in my nightgown and boots.

Sure

enough, two little fountains beside the road had erupted

into a raging torrent. I ran to the phone, tripping over

the dog bowl on my way, and punched in the number for the

water company. "Welcome to the Fayette County Water

System. Listen carefully our menu options have changed...

yadayadayada... for payment locations, press one, for

directions, press two, to report a water system outage,

press three yadayada... for service calls, stay on the

line, press one, for new service, press two,

yadayadayda... for all other calls, stay on the line...

help you?" "Yes, there's a water main break in

front of my house. My dogs may be swept away along with

my children if you don't get somebody out here

quick!"

The water

company truck pulled up in front of my house within 15

minutes. Great! "Ma'am we're going to shut the water

off," the crew announced. "Not so great."

A non-flushing toilet is a disaster waiting to happen. We

pile in the car and head to Grandma's. Guess what? She's

not home. Next best bet,-Chik-Fil-A. Clean bathrooms and

hot coffee and biscuits. Alright.

Uh oh. No

wallet. Daughter Julia saves the day. "I've got

three dollars, Mommy," she offers. What a wonderful

child. After a trip to the restroom, I get in line

clutching her pink Spotty Dotty wallet and step up to

order. "One large coffee and a cinnamon swirl,"

I tell the cashier. "That's $1.67." I open the

wallet to find 21 quetzales. "Do you accept foreign

currency?" I ask the cashier. No luck and no coffee.

We return

home to find a large tractor digging up the front yard

and a trio of workmen peering into a large hole and

scratching their heads. This doesn't look good. But

miracles do happen and within two hours, the faucets are

on and running. On the positive side, I now have a nice

seeded patch of lawn and a clean driveway.

The rest of

the day was a series of stops and starts involving

sopping wet clothes, hat hair, lost keys, lost kids, lost

dog, etc.

Like

Alexander, I think I'll move to Australia.

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