What A Crappy Morning...Literally!

I didn't get much sleep last night. I was woken up by a mysterious crash at about 3am (probably the cats having another wild shooter party on top of the China cabinet.) Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep until about 7am, and when Theo pulled me out of a very strange dream, the first thing he said to me was "Emma says something's wrong with the toilet." I just figured the chain was tangled or something minor like that, until I pulled open my drapes and saw the sewer truck working in our back alley. Oh-oh. When I opened my bedroom door, I was greeted with a real, genuine, overwhelming smell of 'eau-de-toilette' that permeated the entire house.

The bathroom door was closed by the time I got to it, Emma had made it "off limits." I peeked inside, only to find dirty toilet water sprayed everywhere. Yuck! (and the seat was down!) What made it even worse was that my bladder was about to explode. I checked the bathroom in the basement and it was the same scene. Yucky sewer water everywhere. Crappy. Crappy, crappy, crappy. We've had a similar issue in the past, the sewer line workers are required to use low pressure. But they obviously didn't!

I called the city and they told me someone would call me back...eventually. So I shamelessly went out to the truck in the alley (yes, in my pajamas, with my dragon breath and crazy morning hair) and told the workers about the pleasant situation in our house. Yup, I told them "my house smells like s**t, my toilets are overflowing, and I need coffee. Now." Well, maybe I didn't use those exact words, but all they could say was "sorry."

So back to the house I went, knowing that it was going to be one of those days. There was breakfast to prepare, I had to get the kids started on their schoolwork (we homeschool), Emma had her first Musical Theatre class in a few hours, I still had to pee and the house was a smelly disaster. Then the city called back to say "sorry". I told them I would send them the cleaning bill. Of course, that means filling in a damage claim form, yadiyadiyada. I probably looked a little bit like the woman in this picture (with worse hair, pajamas and a fuller bladder).

But then something in my brain happened. That's quite surprising pre-coffee. I remembered a particular mindfulness card that I had written and included in my deck of 56 cards just a few weeks ago. Yup, those cards are back to haunt me. This one basically said "if you can't change a situation, you might as well relax and surrrender." I took a deep breath and just let go of the anger, the frustration and the stress. Then I smiled to myself, thinking that if the damage claim goes through, at least I will have started my day by making $100 for washing the bathrooms. Not bad, right?

The whole ordeal was stressful, but somehow, we got everything done. The kids ate their breakfast on the front step -where at least it didn't smell like a sewer- while I pulled out the sexy latex gloves. Emma and Theo promptly did all their schoolwork, I sent in the damage claim, and we even made it to Musical Theatre class on time. The only thing missing was my coffee, which I got to enjoy even more than usual later in the day. Did I mention how sparkling our bathrooms are now?

All the best,

Lise Villeneuve
Creator of Conscious Kids
Get your free deck of mindfulness cards here.