ON GETTING IT WRONG by Donna

The catchy phrase "When it rains, it pours" is so catchy, it's getting caught in my throat.

I kept finding piles of wings around the house (the 1928 wood frame house we bought 2 years ago) and, yes, they are termite wings. Naively, we agreed with our FOUR-AND-A-HALF-YEAR-OLD that they kinda looked like seeds. You know, the kind that dry up inside a weedy flower and blow around in the wind. When I tried to explain these "seeds" to the termite inspector, I could tell he was struggling to keep a straight face.

Apparently, these little invaders swarm in the house, get where they want to go (a nice woody spot, I guess), tear their own little wings off, make termite whoopy, and then burrow into the beautiful wood floor my husband painstakingly stripped and refinished himself.

Sadly, the children's floor was partially eaten out before we got worried enough about all the seed piles. Whoops.

Last week, right before our July 4th cookout, I was unloading the dishwasher when I realized the cabinet above me was actually pulling away from the wall. I kept hearing a cracking sound when I closed that cabinet door. I thought it was the plastic bag of flour, so I pushed it in a little further and shut the door. The door opened again, so I gave that bag of flour a good shove. That's when I realized that the cabinet was coming down. On top of me.

So there I was, holding up my cabinet and trying to close the dishwasher with my foot, shouting for my husband in my calm distressed voice. It never actually fell, thank God. We got it down and put it on the back porch where the rainstorm that afternoon soaked it and it fell apart. Gotta love pressed wood.

The kitchen cabinet just spontaneously decided to malfunction. It actually had nothing to do with the termites. We're just lucky, I guess.