snarkwife dot com

There was this running joke I proliferated throughout Twitterville last month, about how it seemed to unexpectedly pour down rain here shortly after we’d run a round of the sprinklers.  While it was merely annoying at the time, it only took one look at our $130 City of Allen bill yesterday and the fact that our water consumption increased three hundred percent from the month of May to the month of June…to know something was up.

I called the City of Allen utility billing department and after saying, “Our bill is really, really high…there’s no way two people go through 800 gallons of water a day,” the very cordial customer service rep immediately went to page 3 of The Script and replied, “Have you been using your irrigation system more?”  Well, her slight Texas drawl led me to believe she was asking me if we had been using our air conditioning system more.  Uh, yeah.  It’s freaking hot outside.  Of course we have.  And, what does that have to do with our water usage?  Oh…irrigation.  Got it.  No, not using that any more than we did three months ago.  If anything we’ve been using it less since now that we’ve stopped running it so much…and funny thing, the rain has stopped, too.  Go figure.

A very friendly City of Allen tech came out yesterday afternoon to check our water meter, and the thing was spinning like one of those clocks in a movie that’s trying to show the rapid passing of thirty years.  He asked if we had any water running.  No.  Well, mystery solved.

Turns out, we have a leak somewhere in our sprinkler system (great, here we go again), and this time it’s leaking out a staggering 20,000+ gallons a month.  Holy crap.  CU shut off the main valve for the sprinkler system, so at least we’ve capped the leak at 15,000 gallons for the current month…and someone’s coming out to diagnose and fix the problem. Cha-ching.

It’s like the Household Gods caught wind that CU got a promotion and now want to suck us dry.

Need further proof?  Daisy got an ear infection (First one ever. Naturally.) and we had to take her into the vet on Friday.  Cha-ching.  Cookie had to go in Monday, for her bi-annual bloodwork and urinalysis.  Cha-ching.  Yesterday our wonderfab veterinarian called back with the results of Cookie’s bi-annual bloodwork and, we need to put her on a third drug to lessen the negative effects and optimize the positive effects of the furosemide.  Cha-ching.  Her potassium levels have decreased since January and although everything else appears normal, it has been a year since her heart failure was diagnosed.  We figured we’d need to start tweaking things as, well, things progressed.  So, turns out her new drug (spironolactone) only comes in Big Dog pill size, so we had to have the Tiny Dog elixir mixed up at a compounding pharmacy.  Cha-ching.  As we were heading out to pick the prescription up this morning, the Jeep wouldn’t start.  Sigh.  Really? We’ll get around to dealing with that eventually.  Cha-ching.

But…let’s look at the positive things, right?  Project Runway is on tonight, and I will be done with this God-forsaken semester (and the last of my most-feared classes) in nine short days.  We’re getting all of the carpet in our house replaced…at no charge to us.  Apparently, Wear-Dated really does approve claims.  We leave for Hawaii in 49 days.  I will be finishing my degree in a year.  Capt. UberHusband gets to work at home for at least a couple more weeks. Only 4.4 lbs. until I hit my goal weight.

And…no tuition payment next month.  Cha-ching!

I think I’ll go hug my husband and my dogs now.