Being Bipolar

After five months of putting in posts every single day of the week I have decided to take a much deserved weekend off. Since you will be waiting a few days for an update, I’m going to tell you a hilarious story that will keep you laughing until I return. All of it is true—I swear!

I seriously have to wonder about the boys sometimes. By boys, I don’t mean my 17 and 10-year-old sons. I mean my husband and our 22 year old “adopted” son, Brian. At this point I realize that I am somewhat responsible for the incident. I should have never mentioned the ants in the mailbox while the two of them were together.

Honestly, I only mentioned it because they had been in there for over a week and it was now full of them. I assumed (wrongfully) that my husband would go out to the camper and get the ant spray and spray down the mailbox. They were walking out the door with a can of hairspray in hand and I just knew this was not going to have a good outcome.

I watched through the door (waiting to see who would need medical attention first) as they sprayed the box full of hairspray and tried to light it on fire. Fortunately, hair spray isn’t as flammable as you would think. I was relieved until they got out the can of spray paint. I pictured a flaming mailbox shooting over the roof. There was going to be no happy ending to this.

They sprayed the box full of paint and then lit it on fire and slammed the door. It, of course, blew the door back open. At least no one was hurt, right? Well, if they had walked away then it would have been fine. They looked into the mailbox and apparently they were not satisfied that the ants were dead. I saw several more flashes of light before I saw a very large whoosh followed by two boys running away from the mailbox in opposite directions.

At this point, I couldn’t watch anymore. It was only a few minutes before they walked into the door and I was overwhelmed by the smell of burning hair. Brian, who decided my husband would do the spraying and he would light the fumes, had stuck his arm into the mailbox and lit it. That was the big whoosh. It burned almost all of the hair off of his right arm and burned him in several spots. “Hey, the ants are dead!” they proclaimed. I just shook my head. I should have never mentioned the ants. What was I thinking?

Before you get too worried, we fixed poor Brian up with Solarcaine. In case you don’t know what that is, it is made to treat minor burns and sunburn. It has aloe vera and a numbing agent. It was getting late at that point so he decided to go on home and lick his wounds. Does it end there? Of course not.

About five minutes later, he texts and asks my husband to bring the Solarcaine to work the next day. I had tried to send it home with him but he wouldn’t hear of it. Twenty minutes later, he texts and says he couldn’t stand how one arm had hair and the other one didn’t. He shaved his other arm to match. All I could do was laugh.

I guess it could have been much worse. No one was seriously injured (thank goodness) and they didn’t blow the mailbox up. It will need a new paint job, though. Perhaps I will paint some flames down the side to commemorate the Great Ant Massacre of 2009.

Have a great weekend, and remember—don’t let your boys play with aerosol cans and a lighter.

Woody Harrelson attacked a TMZ photographer and claimed he mistook him for a zombie. He said he was still in character for the new movie he had been shooting. He plays a man fighting to survive in a world full of zombies. Harrelson says he thought the photographer was a zombie and it was an understandable mistake. Ha! This one’s for you, Woody!

The mortgage companies must be seriously hurting right now. I fully understand that these are hard times economically speaking, but this is getting ridiculous. I feel like I am being harassed.

About four months ago, my mortgage payment was made about two days after the grace period. On the same day that the payment was made, I received a letter in the mail from them that stated in big bold letters that this was an attempt to collect a debt and ended in them threatening foreclosure. The payment was just two days late. I knew then that it was a sign of bad things to come.

Two days ago we received a call from the mortgage company stating that our March payment had not been paid. I asked if they were sure and they double-checked and said yes.  I told her I would call my husband at work and check on it and have him call her back. Fortunately, he always writes the confirmation number down when he pays the payment. He had paid through the automated system and apparently the automated system that calls delinquent accounts can’t access the automated payment system to see what has been paid. Seriously, that needs to be fixed. He was able to get it straightened out and they found our payment.

The next morning, (which was yesterday) he again receives a call from the mortgage company stating payment was due. He told them that he had just spoken to them yesterday and that they had straightened it out. She told him she was calling about April’s payment, which had just become due. It’s still in the grace period before it’s technically late. It just reached the due date for crying out loud. He told her the payment would be made before the grace period was up.

I was sleeping peacefully this morning when the phone rang and woke me up. I answered and it was the mortgage company yet again. I had to verify the property address and all of that and then she asks about April’s payment again. The conversation went something like this:

Mortgage company: I am calling to ask when you intend to make the April payment.

Me: Seriously? My husband and I have talked to you every day for the last three days.

Mortgage company: Yes ma’am. When can we expect payment to be made?

Me: The payment is just now due. Are you going to call every day until the payment is made?

Mortgage company: It’s an automated system and it auto dials the numbers on a daily basis.

Me: Even the accounts that are just now due and still within the grace period?

Mortgage company: Yes ma’am.

Me: Ok then. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

And with that, I hung up without saying another word.

Honestly, do they think that harassing customers who are not delinquent is going to help their financial situation? I swear that if they call tomorrow I am going to tell them that I could make a payment at any time but I so look forward to their daily phone calls that I am purposely withholding payment until the last day of our grace period. Sheesh!

Have a great day!