No Big Deal Right?

I am blessed with a mother that is one of my best friends in the whole-wide-world.

She is smart, funny, sensitive and the one you want on your side in an argument - she should have been a litigator - and is the ultimate "momma bear" if someone she loves is in danger.

If you are in need of an advocate for medical services she will go to any length to help including calling the governor's office if need be. Most medical practitioners have never had a patient or advocate that arms herself with information the way she does. She has knowledge of obscure facts  and laws that most people have never heard of, never mind remember, and can recall details of a phone conversation from 1972.

Her math skills suck unless you want to know how much 25% off the sale price of an item is but her command of the English language is above par. She is one of the few people left in the world who can actually diagram a sentence or explain what a dangling participle is but ask her to plug in a printer and things will go to hell in the blink of an eye!

There is no such thing as a quick trip to my mom's house.

Knowing this, when I arranged to "stop" in last weekend, to return the wood splitting equipment that we had borrowed, I expected to find a list of things that needed to be done. The first of which was to tighten the faucet on the kitchen sink. Upon attempting to do so, we discovered that there was a leak in the drain pipe from the small (right) sink.

No big deal right?

Wrong!

I tightened it up. Fixed! Yay!

Or so I thought...

I crawled the rest of the way under the sink and tightened the faucet down. Whew that was easy. Mom turned on the water to make sure that the thing wasn't wiggling around anymore and next thing I knew I had dirty drain water spewing onto my face!

AAAAAACK! Shut it off, shut it off, SHUT IT OFF!!!!

Ugh! Now I have to call the king of all things water, AKA Hubby, and see if he can tell me what the issue is.

I got hubby, who was giving the boys their post nap snack, on the phone and told him what was happening, followed his instructions to a T and reassembled everything.

It didn't work.

I took pictures and sent them off to him so he could see exactly where the problem was and waited for the return call with further instructions.

So picture me sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the kitchen sink, phone pressed between my left shoulder and ear trying to follow his directions while he plays referee with the boys.

In the meantime, my mother, who has always hated the pendent lights that hang over the island located behind me, turns them off leaving me virtually in the dark. As if that weren't bad enough, she either makes a comment or askes me questions ever time I make a comment to hubby.

Not only can I not see but I can't hear the guy who knows what he's talking about!

I had to point out to my mom that I WAS ON THE PHONE!!!

I seem to have followed his directions pretty well and got the problem fixed but we left the bucket there just in case!

Then I hear, "You know what I should have you do while you're here?"

Here it comes...

"I can have you hook up my printer," she says.

Oy vey!

She told me a few months ago that she needed a printer. The old one wouldn't work. So I researched printers and, because of the cost of ink cartridges, suggested that she go with a decent laser printer this time, sent her a link for a Brother color laser printer.

It's been in the box since it arrived at her house for at least two months.

So we begin the process of removing the old one, cleaning the dust bunnies out from under the desk and plugging in the new, wireless printer. There is a problem...her router is so old that it will not communicate with her new printer. She is going to have to call Verizon to get them to install a current wireless router for her DSL.

She then says, well the new one will still scan and copy right?

Scan? Copy? No! You told me you needed a printer...

So, I asked her what was wrong with the old printer anyway - something that as a result of hindsight I should have done months ago - and was told that she couldn't use it because it was plugged into my dad's old computer.

Wait, what?

I should have known...

This is the same woman that thought she could only access her gmail account on one computer.

Sooooooo....

I plugged in the old computer, connected the USB cable to mom's laptop, installed the drivers and voila, fixed!

Yep, it was that easy!

I'm reasonably certain that she has yet to call Verizon to get the router switched out. There are other work arounds for it but I'm not about to go there with her...ever!