So What If I Don't Want To Make Lemonade???

You've all heard the saying and most of you have probably even uttered it at some point in your life...

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"

Hell, I'm guilty of using it in the past. Today however, it sounds like the biggest bunch of cheery-assed bullshit I've ever heard. I'm not a happy person. I know usually I have some sort of positive message to throw out there, but today you get to hear my bitch (though I'm sure there is a silver lining there somewhere).

You see, the past 24 hours of my life has sucked. To ensure that you know that I am keeping this in perspective, I do realize that there are more layers of suck than there are in an onion and my current suck level is nowhere near as bad as it could be. Truly, I still have so much in life to celebrate and be thankful for but I also believe that clearing the air is a worthwhile endeavor from time to time. If nothing else, it helps you get it all out and get back to a place where you can start appreciating the good things again. And now for my story...

It all started last night. I was hanging with my buds on Xbox Live and just chilling out in preparation for bedtime. As I'm sitting there having a nice conversation, a hear a very loud pop immediately followed by my TV and laptop both blinking off. Now, before I go further you need to know that they are on completely seperate plugs on opposite sides of the room and also that the Xbox and stereo receiver are on the same strip as the TV but never even flinched. So as this freak power surge or whatever it was left it's mark, my TV slowly started to come back on and eventually the tube returned to it's regular state. My laptop however looked to be quite fried. It wouldn't power up at all and I couldn't get the battery out of it either. Long story short, I finally got it to power back up only to smell that horrible smell signifying burning electronics and my mouse (plugged in USB) decided not to work. Today, the smell is gone and the laptop seems mostly OK albeit not pushed at all just yet, but I have no USB at all...it's fried. Not good considering I use USB for my mouse, my backups, and my movie capture card. I'm basically screwed there for the time being until I can figure out if and how it might be repaired.

So that was bad, but not end of the world and not nearly enough to have me this pissed, right? Right.

I was doing a decent job of moving on from that when my cell phone rang at 8:10 this morning. It was my wife and she never calls then so I knew it was something bad. Turns out our dog...our 10 year old dog who's been with us the entire time we've lived in our house and is almost as old as our daughter...had decided that he didn't WANT to come inside this morning when it was time for her to go to work and, in fact, decided that it was worth it to him to turn around and bit the shit out of her. Bit both of her hands which of course scared the crap out of her. NOW I was pissed. He's been a great dog and we all love him very much, but he's old and has gotten progressively grumpy with our little dogs over the past few months. Still, he never showed his teeth to anyone in the family but me, and that was only in times when he was in trouble and felt scared (he never liked being yelled at much). So I come rushing home to find him, well, the only word for it is crazed. Out of control. Not good.

After checking on Suzanne's hands and making sure they weren't broken and that she was fine, we got him inside and calmed down but there is no way in hell I'm letting him be around my kids or anyone else's like that. No way at all. No choice but to have him put down.

Ready for the clincher?

We get to do this on the same fucking day that my son is having a birthday sleepover party with his friends from school. We get to not only deal with losing a much loved pet...no, member of the family. Nah, that just isn't enough pain, right? No. We have to bring our children home from school and break the news that their dog has to be killed. Yeah, take that lemonade and shove it right up your ass!

So here I sit, writing this and trying to find the room in my head to let my faith regain control and start to remember the positives again...and it just isn't working. I want to beat the crap out of something. I want to go drink myself under a table somewhere. I want to cry. Sure, I could handle it on my own. I could probably even help manage Suzanne's grief together with her. But having to tell my children something like this and help them put it into perspective for them and then somehow get my son to flip a switch and have a good time, well that might just be asking too much. While he's acting like he's having a good time, he mentions the fact that his dog is dying tonight regularly and I know the smile is only a cover. Me? I'm left to sit and stew with it. Lemonade? Not tonight I'm afraid.

Maybe tomorrow...