The Silence Is Deafening

I got this letter in the mail a few weeks ago informing me that I shouldn't use my oven anymore. Apparently, there have been seventy-two incidents of ovens just like mine catching on fire from overheating wires. I generally get around to opening my mail once dinner is cooking. ..so this letter made for a rather tense waiting game while the steak tips finished broiling. Of course, I could have taken the steak tips out and thrown them on the grill, but I didn't. I let the potentially combustible oven finish its job and then we ate our dinner uneventfully, like always. No fire.

It took me another several days to get around to calling the 800 number on the letter to schedule my "free repair service", but I did eventually call. And today is the day they are coming. Sometime today. Between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. So I'm sitting here. Waiting.

"Free" is a relative term, you know. They may not charge me actual money to come out here into the middle of nowhere and fix my defective oven, but they are holding me captive. Can't go to work. Don't have access to work from home yet. No point in getting dressed for work yet, because I could be the last call of the day. Can't lay around in my pj's all day, either, because they might miraculously show up on the early side of that time window, and then I would be released back to my regularly scheduled life.

The girls are at school, so there's nobody here to scold or feed or drive places. Everyone else I know is at work already. House is pretty clean already, thanks to the genius of the "extra allowance" chore list I created for the Tornadoes last weekend. I know, it's highly controversial to pay your children to help around the house. They should do their share, blah blah blah...you know what? I don't want to do all the laundry myself, and they want to make a little money. It's a win win.

So there's not much to do while I wait but sit here and drink coffee, look at celebrity mug shots online, and get in touch with my inner hypochondriac. I have developed this little swollen gland under my chin. It doesn't exactly hurt, but I'm super aware of it. Probably because I have touched it about once every ninety seconds since Wednesday night when I first noticed it. I have already checked my symptoms on the Internet - I have only one symptom, this freaky little swollen gland - and it appears I may either have an infection of some sort, or the mumps, or something totally disastrous and unmentionable. Of course, my inner hypochondriac has focused exclusively on that last possibility. I am only an occasional hypochondriac, thank heavens. And while I know the sensible thing to do here is to just give my doctor a call and run it by him, I already know he's going to want me to come in. And I CAN'T come in. I'm waiting for my free service call.

Now, to distract myself from the vision of starring in my own medical emergency, I'm going to go read up on a little Hollywood gossip. And maybe call my doctor.