Jen Lancaster - If You Were Here

“You need to check the gossip sites more often, Kara,” Tracey admonishes. “Vienna took off for the ashram in Eat, Pray, Love a week ago. She was quoted as saying she ‘wants to be more spiritual and shit.’ Deep thinker, that one. I read that she and fifteen of her closest friends flew there on her dad’s custom-built Global Express XRS.”

“Because nothing gets you down the path to enlightenment faster than a forty-million-dollar private jet.” Kara giggles.

Somewhere above us we hear an enormous crash, followed by a TMZ -worthy string of profanity, followed by. . silence. “No, really!” I shout at the ceiling. “I can call a plumber anytime you’d like.”

Mac’s response is muffled but audible. “Still fine. Not to worry.”

Ten minutes later, we’re onto the topic of Tracey’s recent breakup. She says they had “irreconcilable differences,” which we’ve interpreted as “an expired Viagra prescription.”We’re teasing Tracey about cruising senior centers for dates when we hear the first groan.

“Was that Daisy?” Tracey asks. Fair question. Were farting an Olympic sport, Daisy would easily medal.

“Ha,” I snicker. “If Daisy tooted, there’d be no confusion about it. You’d know.” Because pit bulls have shorter, wider snouts, they take in more air when they eat. And because Daisy’s plump as a pork roast, she eats an awful lot. You see where I’m going with this? Mac always says the Department of Defense could weaponize what comes out of her.

We resume our conversation, and thirty seconds later, we hear another groan, this time longer in duration and a bit more urgent. “What is that?” Kara asks.

“Eh, it’s an old house. Old houses make noise,” I reply. The main part of our home was built in 1891. I love living somewhere with a real history about it.

“So, anyway, Tracey, I’m writing about May — December affairs, and my readers want to know”— groan —“if there’s snow on the roof”— GROOOOAN— “does that mean there’s frost on the—” But before Kara can complete her thought, the groaning noise grows exponentially louder and is immediately followed by the sound of a thousand wood fibers snapping.

After that, and almost as if in slow motion, we witness my prized polished paneling begin to bow before completely giving way.

The chandelier is the first casualty. It comes down slowly, serenely, almost lyrically, with each individual crystal creating its own bit of music before swinging toward the bay window and smashing into a veritable Kristallnacht in the side yard.

Fortunately, we’re all sitting opposite from the fulcrum of broken paneling, and other than the window, there are no additional victims.

According to the entry about gravity on Wikipedia: Under an assumption of constant gravity, Newton’s law of universal gravitation simplifies to F = mg, where m is the mass of the body and g is a constant vector with an average magnitude of 9.81 m/s 2. The acceleration due to gravity is equal to this g. An initially stationary object which is allowed to fall freely under gravity drops a distance which is proportional to the square of the elapsed time , which is really just a fancy way of saying that pastel pink toilets fall from a hole in the ceiling pretty fucking hard.

“You guys?” I shriek. “Kara, Tracey, talk to me.” There’s so much dust I can barely see either of them. They both answer affirmatively, and a massive feeling of relief rushes through me.

Fortunately, the dogs are also fine, because they both raced out of the room after the first few groans. Funny, but animals can always sense impending danger.

Or in this case, impending stupidity.

In unison, we look up at the massive hole in the ceiling about the same time Mac peers down. “You okay down there? Oh, hey, Tracey, Kara, didn’t know you were here.”We’re all speechless, gawping back at him in stunned silence. “I think I dropped the toilet,” Mac adds helpfully.

“No shit,” I reply. 97I survey the wreckage in my office. Aside from the gaping hole in the ceiling and the bashed window, the toilet has taken out my desk, my computer, my monitor, my chair, and has smashed into enough pieces to make Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses, and all the king’s men look like a bunch of rank amateurs.

“I guess I needed a plumber after all. Possibly a carpenter, too,” Mac admits sheepishly, causing a whole bunch of blood vessels in my brain to spontaneously burst.

“Hey, Mia?” Kara prods me gently. “Looks like the bourbon survived.”

And then we drink.

And then we barf in the three remaining toilets.

“It could have happened to anyone,” Mac reasons.

“Is that right?” I snap. “Because I watch even more HGTV fix-up shows than you, and some of those homeowners are beyond dumb, like they don’t understand the concept of not touching live wires or wet paint. Yet I’ve never once seen a single toilet fall through their ceilings, let alone two .”

After Toiletgate, the girls and I spent the whole night cleaning up the library. . and swilling bourbon. 98Shards of potty flew into every corner of the room — under couches, behind books on the shelves, in the fireplace, etc. After we’d finally retrieved all the pieces that could pierce tender paw pads and bare feet, we hauled my trashed desk and computer equipment into the hallway, thus completely blocking the entrance to the dining room.

What makes me angriest is that I hadn’t run a backup since I added all that material to the new book, so those pages are gone. Since I’m so freaking furious, I can’t really concentrate enough to recall what I wrote, either.

Fortunately, I still had the board-up company’s information, so getting the window covered was easy. Untangling the chandelier from the sticker bushes was less so, and my arms appear to have gone three rounds with a Mixmaster. Naturally, both processes inspired new neighborhood petitions. Oh, what’s that you say, Lululemon, Citizen Cane, and Elbow Patches? You’re bothered by the boarded window? Join the fucking club.

We cordoned off the bathroom with the open floor and booked a handyman, although he can’t be here until late next week, as apparently everyone in the Cambs is doing renovations.

Mac and I reached an uneasy truce, because I desperately hate being mad at anyone, particularly the person who’s most important to me in the whole world. Mac was unbelievably contrite and helped me piece together a rudimentary work space until my new furniture arrives. So instead of tapping away on my desktop with the thirty-inch UltraSharp monitor while reclining in a posture-fit, multiadjustable Aeron chair, I’ve been parked in an ass-flattening metal folding chair, squinting at an old laptop that’s sitting on top of a door supported by moving boxes on either side. The only way I’ve consoled myself is that the whole setup feels vaguely Amish.

All of that being said, one would think Mac might hang up his tool belt, but no. Then while I was out today, Mac decided to try to replace another toilet. He said he wanted to surprise me.

When I came home to find a second toilet shattered on the floor of the opposite end of the library — this time powder blue — trust me, I was surprised.

The weather’s warming up and the house is stuffy and full of the stench of failure, so I’m going around opening windows. This will give me something to do with my hands, considering they seem to want to wrap themselves around Mac’s neck at the moment.

Mac is right on my heels. “I said I’m sorry. I really thought I had it right this time, but toilets are a lot heavier than you’d think, especially the older ones.”

I can’t even look at him, because I’m afraid I’ll lose my temper. “Uh-huh.”