It could always be worse

Our second night in Alabama was horrible. Fifteen minutes before we were supposed to check into our apartment, the apartment management called us and told us that our apartment had fleas, that there were no other apartments available, and that they were closing so we would have to wait and talk to them about it the next day. We were frustrated, worried, and homeless. I don't know what we would have done without the Van Kampens, my grandparents dear friends, who invited us to stay with them until everything got taken care of.

As I rocked Jack to sleep that night, I felt pretty sorry for myself. I glanced at their bookcase and saw a children's book entitled, It Could Always Be Worse. I thought the title seemed timely for our situation, so I opened it up and read...


"Once upon a time a poor unfortunate man lived with his mother, his wife, and his six children in a one-room hut. Because they were so crowded, the children often fought and the man and his wife argued. When the poor man was unable to stand it any longer, he ran to the Rabbi for help..."

The Rabbi then advices the man to bring his dog to sleep in their hut, and then their cat, and cow, and chicken and pretty soon their whole hut is filled with all of their barn animals and it is complete chaos. Finally, the Rabbi tells the man to put all of his animals back into the barn and then, the man is soooo grateful to live with just his mother, his wife, and his six children in that one-room hut. The once unfortunate man feels fortunate. 

I thought the story was cute so I read it to Spencer, and we went to bed grateful, knowing that our situation could always be worse.

And boy, did it get worse. 

We anxiously waited for two more days not knowing if we could get into an apartment.

Then we got into an apartment! But once the freshly painted wall smell resided and the carpet cleaning smell resided, the smoke smell started seeping through the walls. 

Then Jack started eating the cat hair!

And I had a claustrophobic panic attack!

So we packed up all of our stuff and moved again.

And even though our air conditioner is still broken in this apartment, and even though our washer and dryer can't be plugged in until the air conditioner is fixed, and even though it takes an hour and a half to drain the water from a 5 minute shower, and even though our screen door is ripped and broken, and even though our garbage disposal is broken, and even though our oven timer and light is broken, and even though our hallway light is dangling by one tiny wire, we have just kept on being grateful because we are smoke free and cat hair free and flea free! And we aren't homeless! And we met the nicest friends! And the management promised they would get around to fixing everything! And because it could always be worse!

And oh, how I wish that was the end of our cute little "it could always be worse/count your blessings" story.

But, on Thursday we found the bed bugs...

So for the past three days, we've been washing and drying and trashing and bagging all of our belongings. We've googled searched and vacuumed and wiped and sprayed. We keep our clean belongings in the truck, and our dirty belongings in the house, and the most entertainment we've had all weekend was the look on the bank tellers face when we asked him for $80 in quarters.  Lying awake at night just thinking that those tiny little suckers are crawling up and down our skin is actually worse than the bed bug bites themselves.

But tonight we'll sleep tight, knowing that this is (hopefully) the last night the bed bugs will bite (because pest control is coming in the morning!!! Hallelujah!!) and also knowing that it could always be worse. 

And if it does get worse... BRING IT!!!

In the mean time, we'll just stay slap happy from exhaustion.