Stepping away from politics for a moment, I’ll wax poetically about purpose, the universe, and the old cliche, ‘All things for a reason.’

It had been a long, high energy, mostly sleepless weekend, and by Sunday evening my stress level had reached critical mass. We were meeting up with my parents for dinner at the Outback, and I looked forward to having a nice cold glass of white wine and a hunk of cow, as I was craving a little protein.

Anyone who has ever been to the Outback steakhouse knows that if you don’t get there by five, you will undoubtedly have a forty five minute wait. We left the house at a quarter till and arrived just before the rush. After fifteen or twenty minutes we were seated at a table next to the bathroom. As we were about to sit down, I caught a waft of what smelled like a combination of Pine Sol and urine. I flagged down the hostess and told her we needed a different table. Another twenty five minutes later, we were seated again. Somehow though the piney uriney scent had settled in my nose and wouldn’t leave. I ordered a glass of wine and downed it in two hits. “I’ll have another, please.”

I won’t go into detail about the rest of the dinner in attempt to preserve family harmony and peace, (and my own ass) however, suffice to say that by the end of dinner, after almost winging a hockey puck at the waiter who tried to convince me it was a hamburger, I was close to imploding, and just wanted to go home and get into bed. After, that is, I sprayed once more for the fleas.

It became apparent to me about an hour after we got home however, that I wouldn’t be getting to sleep anytime soon as I was still too agitated. My husband was busy working on some estimates and it looked like he’d be up for a while. I had some work to do too and I holed up in my office and shut the door.

There are strange noises at night, but you get used to those that are part of your house and your life. The ice maker, the fridge, the hum of the ceiling fan, the turbine on the roof. As I sat in my office working, I could hear a faint hiss of what sounded like air being let out of something but chalked it up the compressor in the back of the little fridge in the laundry room and paid it no attention.

An hour became two, then three and soon it was two am and my contact lenses were sticking to my eyeballs like glue. Time, finally, to go to bed. Surely I’d be able to sleep tonight. And as I opened my office door, all cozy in my sweat pants and fuzzy slippers, I stepped down the step, and into a puddle of water easily a foot deep.

The hot water heater, the EIGHTY GALLON hot water heater, the one we’d put in a year or so before to insure that no matter how long a shower the kids took, I’d always have hot water for my shower, had sprung a slow leak and was now trickling it’s way through the house. I woke my husband who had fallen asleep, head down on a pile of estimates, and being the good little contractor he is, went to the shed and whipped out his handy-dandy-new-and-improved-super-duper-turbo-charged shop-vac. It was going to be a long night.

I tie this all together by deducing that, if not for all the people that PISSED ME OFF this weekend and contributed to my foul mood, I’d have happily gone to bed at a normal hour, only to wake up to eighty gallons of water in my house. As it was, my husband was able to replace the valve (gotta love a guy who can do that in the middle of the night) and we all had hot showers in the morning.

And anyone who knows me, knows that if I dont get a hot shower in the morning, someone is going to get hurt. Seriously hurt.

Everything for a reason.