Putting the DAMN! in Damsel.

My face has been stuck
like this for about 2 weeks.

Can it really be only two weeks ago that I nearly entered myself into the Ms. Provincetown pageant? (I subsequently realized it's not for actual women.) Was it really two weeks ago that I was on that blissful vacation high? Gosh, it feels like a lifetime ago. That must be because the past two weeks have been a totally sh*tfest a bit more challenging. Flood clean-up is not what it used to be.

But as Blanche DuBois famously said, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." And lately I've had the urge to hug a lot of strangers. There was the Verizon guy that fixed my internet AND programmed my remote; the guy at the Apple store that resuscitated my lifeless phone; The troops from the remediation company that won the Battle of Little Big Mold in our basement. Then there was the lady working at Dunkin Donuts that found my debit card. Oh and the entire local fire department - yeah we’ve gotten especially close lately. We have regular date nights now thanks to my water-damaged smoke detectors and overwhelming fear of carbon monoxide .

Try it with a Southern accent.
Works even better.

So I won't bore you with all the sordid details of the who did what, where, how and why of the past two weeks. All I'll say is that I've played the Damsel in Distress more times than a respectable, mature woman really ought to. Don't get me wrong. There have been plenty of good reasons. It's been a constant smackdown of one crisis after another and my delicate girly brain just can't take any more of it.

Why Big Kind Sir, can you please help little ol' me?

(Let's be honest, ladies. We've all played Damsel for some not-so-good reasons too. Works every time. You men are suckers).

Take Wednesday night approximately 9pm. I was enjoying a peaceful night at home. My kids were finally asleep. My husband was traveling which meant I was a little lonely and a little extra tired. But it also meant I could eat cereal for dinner and rewatch the SYTYCD finale...again. It almost evens out, especially with a glass of Bordeaux.

So picture me: On the couch, in my comfiest, frumpiest pajamas, cereal on my lap, wine in my glass, brain blissfully disengaged, and eyes glued to the TV behind glasses 2-inch-thick. Probably a little more detail than I should admit, but we're all friends here.

And then the fire alarms go off. All of them.

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN!

DAMN! for SO MANY reasons. DAMN! because I was relaxing and so happy on the couch. DAMN! because my kids had finally fallen asleep and I was deathly afraid of waking them up. DAMN! because I jumped and spilled wine on my shirt. DAMN! because maybe there really is a F*CKING FIRE! DAMN! because I have to run all over the house and pull the g*dDAMN hardwired alarms out of the ceiling to shut them up. DAMN! because the fire department had already been here twice in the past week!

And DAMN! this time one of them is quite dashing.

If I wasn't happily married this could have been a fantastic way to start a romantic comedy about my life. (Though perhaps in the fictionalized movie version I will be wearing adorable-yet-sexy matching pjs with my hair effortlessly tossed up in a gentle bun. No glasses. No zit cream. No wine spills. And maybe Natalie Portman as a younger, single me and Harry Conick, Jr as the fire chief with the heart of a jazz singer?)

Now that's good casting!

It was seriously a huge heart attack. But the firemen were awesome. They searched high-and-low all over my house checking for fire hazards, carbon monoxide, and kittens stuck in high up places. They talked me down from my panic attack. They reassured Little Ol' Me that we were safe; that my boiler was not about to blow up; that we wouldn't die that night of CO poisoning. And then they reinstalled all my smoke detectors. And tested them. And double checked. And the dashing one winked as he left and said, "See ya 'round, pretty lady." (Okay, fine. That last part only happens to Natalie Portman in the movie.)

I gave them my best Damsel in Distress. An Oscar-worthy performance...had it only been a performance. But I'm hopeful that they went back to the station feeling a little proud of themselves for saving me from the Big Bad Nothing. And I went back to the couch, and back to my cereal, and back to my evening.

And we all lived Happily Ever After.

At least until they came back the next day to check a gas leak.