I Could Die Laughing

First of all, I FINALLY finished the revisions of Betrayal. God bless my patient editor! I think the romance between hero (at left) and heroine—both of whom know betrayal on a personal level—will please readers, and I think I gave the villain his proper comeuppance.

Of course, I am not done with it yet. Still to come are line edits and copy edits and page proofs. But I'm one step closer. That's a good feeling.

Today (Monday) I get back to work on the third book in the series. Prayers appreciated for a quick shift of my brain from a small cattle ranch in Wyoming in 1899 to upper crust society and political circles in Idaho in 1900. And if you're sending up a prayer, you might also ask for an abundance of words every day so that I can get back on schedule.

Second, I actually did get around to cleaning my office. My desktop is clean and so is my credenza. Compare this shot to the one from last week. (FWIW, this won't last long. We are getting new carpeting, and as soon as our chosen carpet is back in stock, we will enter a period of chaos.)

Okay, now I have to share a funny. Last week, while still in the frenzy of trying to finish the revisions, Jerry came to my office and told me he was going to the grocery store. While he was gone, I went into the master bathroom and I heard this strangest vibrating sound coming from around the shower head area. It sounded a bit like what would happen if a large truck was in the neighborhood, idling, maybe while pouring concrete. I needed to water my rhubarb plant, so I went outside. There was no truck, no sound of anything idling. Hmm. I made sure the faucet outside was turned off good, then went back into the master bath. Still the vibrating hum.

Panic started to set in. I couldn't hear water running, but the only thing I could think of was a broken water pipe. I tried to call Jerry on his cell. No answer. A short while later, I tried again. And again. And again. (Turns out he'd left his cell at home, turned to vibrate.) Just as I was about to really panic, he pulled into the drive.

I told him about the vibrating noise in the bathroom. He said he'd heard it earlier and thought it was a big truck idling somewhere (we obviously think alike). We went into the bathroom together. I could put my hand on the wall of the shower and feel it "shaking," and it was making all the little things in the shower (like the mirror and razors hanging on it) make a constant humming sound. Irritating!

Jerry got the flashlight and we opened the trap to underneath the house and we tried to see if water was spraying all over. Couldn't see or hear anything. Now we began to talk about calling a plumber because the vibrations were only in that wall where the pipes were. I'm envisioning dollar signs attached to some major home disaster. And the rattle of the mirror and razors was really getting on my nerves. So I grabbed the mirror (attached with a suction cup) and yanked it off the shower wall. The noise stopped but....

It took several seconds for me to realize that what I was holding in my hand was still vibrating. I looked at it front and back. A vibrating mirror? I said, "Jerry, it's this. What on earth?"

LOL! Turns out one of his regular-looking razors runs on a AAA battery (the closest one in the photo). I didn't know they made such things! He'd failed to turn it off after shaving in the shower, and then forgot about it when he later heard the vibrations.

To say that I'm relieved the sound got on my nerves so that I yanked that thing off the wall is an understatement. Can you imagine paying a plumber $50 or $75 to come tell us to turn off the little razor? Ack!

Oh, we have laughed and laughed about that since. Do things like this happen to other people? I don't know, but by the time Jerry and I are in our dotage, we will probably be laughing 24/7 over the dumb stuff we do.

I could die laughing ... and there are much worse ways to go.

~robin

PS Speaking of laughter in marriage, ours started out that way too. Check out the story on Rachel Hauck's blog.