It’s not all that common that I am proud of something I wrote, or feel that it is worth repeating. Several years ago, I wrote a poem about an experience I had around the holidays, and I’d like to reprint it here so that any of my twelve loyal readers who missed it the first time around can read it now. In 2006, I spent most of the month of December living with my parents-in-law while my father-in-law fought to recover from a nearly fatal bout of the disease C. Difficile. I wrote about it in this blog, and some of you may even remember the poem. During the month or so that Shauna and I were living in that house, just about every major appliance and component malfunctioned and/or self destructed. The very first night Syd was in the hospital, the sewer backed up, leaving a mound of excrement and used toilet paper five feet in diameter on the laundry room floor. From there, it all went downhill. The fridge and the dishwasher died, the toilets crapped out (sorry, but that’s a fair description of what happened), the electrical service shorted out and needed to be replaced. The piece de resistance was when, during what I thought was going to be a routine service call, BOTH furnaces were declared dangerous and were “red tagged” to be shut down permanently. Both had cracked heat exchangers and were beginning to leak carbon monoxide into the house. The furnace guy was obligated to turn off the most dangerous of the two furnaces, but he reluctantly agreed to leave the other one running until we could arrange to have them both replaced. This little bit of bad news came about two weeks before Christmas, and left us scrambling desperately to replace the heating plants in the house in a big hurry. At one point, we were heating the main body of the house with four tiny electric space heaters, during one of the coldest Decembers on record. Meanwhile, my father-in-law was gravely ill, in quarantine at the hospital. I remember standing in an almost empty Home Depot one night in Toronto, there to pick up yet another replacement part for the latest thing that had broken in the house, and a Christmas song came over the loudspeaker. It was surreal, because I was so exhausted and beset by the ongoing problems in my family that I had completely forgotten that it was just days before Christmas. Looking back, it was almost funny, but at the time it was unbelievable. To follow is the poem I wrote 12/24/06 to commemorate the experience:
“The Night Before Christmas (In a Crumbling House)” …
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not an appliance malfunctioned for me or my spouse
The sewer was augured, the fridge was replaced
The dishwasher’s new in its stainless steel case
The electrical panel is expanded and new,
Now we can turn on the microwave and not blow a fuse
The fifty year-old furnaces were torn out and scrapped
Now the new ones are efficient and they don’t blow out crap
The toilets that exploded have now been removed
The new ones are perfect with less water use
The carpets are up and the floors have been sanded
The bids are all in to have the bathroom expanded
The lights have been checked, and the faucets don’t leak
Indeed all of these problems are beyond our belief
And as I lay down to sleep having written this spoof
I’m just praying that Santa doesn’t screw up our roof
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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