Bad Luck List. 2014, You Suck!

I’m  a super attractive sight as I sit in front of my computer typing out this post.  Yellow pus leaks out of my right eye, and my left one is puffy and swollen.  It’s the last straw, the icing on the cake.  2014 so far has been nothing but pure hell.  It seems like the moment I flipped open the calendar to January, BOOM! there was a major explosion of bad, bad luck.

In order to cheer up all of you people who think your month hasn’t been great so far, I’m listing here everything that has happened to me since January 1st:

1.  While chewing gum on my way home from the video store, I closed my jaw and heard a loud CRACK.  One molar, broken.  This is just after paying the dentist bill for its broken brother.

2. I invited my in-laws over for dinner.  For the apero, I made ham-filled croissants to go with the champagne.  But an hour later, they were still raw.  Next day, my garlic bread never browned.  One dead oven.  Cha-ching, add that to the dentist bill.

3. Making pasta on the stove.  I pull the pot off.  Before I can yell at him to stop, our male cat, Oreo, leaps from the floor directly on top of the burner.  Serious freak-out moment for everyone in the house. Our screams scare him off the burner quick enough that his paws are blistered but not worse. He now stays away from the stove.

4. One way-too-young child gets initiated into the club of women way too early.  Blood all over jeans and bottom of shirt while in school.  Embarrassment and tears follow. Serious hormonal meltdown for both mom and daughter.

5. One other child comes home with a letter saying, “Les poux sont parmis nous.” This is after she’d begged to sleep in bed with me for the past week.  My skin crawls as I read that her class has a nice little lice infestation going on. She hasn’t been spared.  I spend hours treating and combing her hair as well as mine and stack up a pile of laundry.  It’s a ritual I will go through several times a week until her head comes out clean.

6. Pocket full of cash lost somewhere between one end of Geneva and the other.  Actually, now this seems very minor.

7. Hubby and kids are in the mountains with the in-laws.  I’m loving a moment alone and preparing for a night out.  Doorbell rings and the neighbor in the apartment next to ours says a cat got over to his apartment and fell off the balcony.  I stare at him, disbelieving.  We’d covered the openings in the balcony with a tarp so the cats couldn’t go to the neighbors’ or slip through to the street below.  I shake my head and ask him to describe the animal.  It’s Noodles.  We run down five flights of stairs and around the building.  There she is, her tongue out, blood dripping from her mouth, her breathing serrated and heavy.  She feels like shattered glass when I pick her up.  It takes 40 minutes to get to the emergency vet office via public transportation.  I’m bawling in the tram and begging her through the slots of her carrier not to die.  The vet says she has a broken pelvis and legs, but no internal bleeding.  She needs to stay there for the weekend.  He says Monday I need to talk with our regular vet about what can be done, if anything.  When I get home, I squeeze Oreo tight and try not to think about how empty the apartment feels.  Emma, Elodie and I decide we are ready to empty our meager accounts in the States to save Noodles if it comes to that.

8. Wake up.  Can’t open my eyes, as they are glued shut with goop.  Take a shower and manage to pry them open, but the itching and swelling don’t go away.  Pink eye.  Conjunctivitis.  Another great gift from 2014.

So…are you feeling any better about your year now?

I realize that overall, I’m extremely lucky.  These past two weeks have been bad, but nothing like the first two weeks my husband was in the hospital after his ruptured brain aneurysm.  Nor has anyone died.  No one has lost their job or home or any number of things that could be one hundred times worse.  I need to remind myself of that during these moments when I’m ready to ram my head through the wall.

My birthday is coming up soon. All I’m asking for is a change in luck.  Either that, or a fast-forward to 2015.

**Update: January 14 —  Super Noodles is as flexible as her name.  She’s shook up and has one clean break between pelvis and femur, but otherwise okay.  Surgery Thursday and then she’ll be home next weekend.  We’re all giddy with relief…but we’re fitting up the balconies to look like Fort Knox…**