JUST ONE MORE THING!

Telstra tech arrived in the rain so took his boots off before walking on my carpet. Hahahahaha!

It was the point in the other bedroom. When he unscrewed the cap, the copper wires had oxidised to a lovely green colour. I don't know if he replaced them or not. He did something and said there might be a water leak in the wall so I should take off the covering every month and dry it with a hairdryer. He says water leak and I'm thinking cat leak and trying to remember how long ago little Sir Pissington passed to the big litterbox in the sky.

That cat determined that that room was his personal space and sprayed every surface including books, walls and desk. He was particularly adept at pissing upwards so that the underside of anything would be coated and because it couldn't be seen, it dried over time. Weeks later, the pungent wafting would begin and so would the search for the source. The sliding door that went up the side last week still had dried spots on it from where I couldn't reach to clean it. I kept the Nilodor and Fabreeze factories in the black. I finally moved the books to new bookcases and ripped up the carpet and he had done the job so well that the concrete took weeks to dry before I could put down new coverings. That was in 1989. Would it take that long for copper wires to corrode?

I'm not going on the roof to check the spouting which usually leaks over the front door. I will take my chances and use a hair dryer. It bothers me that I didn't ask if he'd fixed it. I was busy putting back the answer phone and connecting the internet. Memo to self: wipe the ex's handwriting from the memory buttons especially the number connecting to one of his girlfriends.

Then the van comes from the Op-shop and loads 20 years of craft magazines and anything else I could find that I don't need. I didn't know he would have a mate with him so I dragged it all out of the house so he wouldn't have a rupture but I think I did something nasty. It will go with the bruise on the left one which I probably copped when I tripped on a hole in the carpet while carrying a load of books. I remember pain and swearing and having to pick up the books.

Then Ma rings. Why haven't I called in with the groceries? Well that would be because it's Tuesday and I shop for her on Thursday. Yes, I'm sure it's Tuesday because yesterday was Monday and I remember the trauma of it all very well. Disaster sobbed down the phone in the morning. The pointy thing that goes in the square thing that plays the round things had broken and the round things wouldn't play. Translation, the plug from the transformer that goes into the player for the DVDs had finally given up the ghost after two years of Ma pulling it out instead of turning the machine off at the power point.

Nowhere in Southland stocks this particular transformer. I have to find the distributor and see if they'll sell me one. Thanks to the sweet young thing in Tandy who told me, very seriously, that I could just solder the copper wires (them again!) together. Do I look like the soldering type? To sweeten the blow I gave the old girl a custard tart for lunch but it was gloom all around as she lay staring at the ceiling before remembering she had a television to play with.

Phone call from the BrickOutHouse last night and all was well. He was a soldering type of person and had fixed it all. She'll still pull it out but he's wrapped enough tape around it so it won't matter. My heart sings.

And the eco-globe in the lounge room blew this afternoon. The replacement globe looks too big to screw in and I have to climb the ladder. Good luck that I didn't send any candles to the op-shop.

It must be in the stars. Stuff March, bring on April.