When Household Appliances Attack.

My house knows I'm moving, and it's not happy about it. I know this because it keeps coming up with dubious ways to thwart my efforts.

It started with the refrigerator. I keep healthy snacks easily accessible in the fridge, generally in the vegetable crisper. Yesterday the girls went to get a string cheese and the crisper wouldn't open. they called for me, but instead of helping, I told them to just pull harder. So they tag teamed and yanked it right open.

Except it didn't just open. It came all the way out and landed somewhere in the middle of the kitchen, taking two glass shelves along for the ride.

I ran into the kitchen and put the crisper back in, but couldn't get the two glass shelves back where they belonged, so I just kind of laid them on top of the crisper. I figured The Hub could fix it all when he got home, and it would have worked great except I forgot they were just teetering in there, and when I opened the fridge to start dinner, the glass shelves came sailing out again and cracked me right in the shin.

Later, someone who shall remain nameless (but might be a naughty little boy) decided it would be a great idea to dump all the goldfish crackers on the floor. And someone else - me - decided it would be best to clean them up before someone ate them off the floor. You know how kids are.

I cleaned them all up, but didn't vacuum because something else caught my attention. It wasn't until the kids were in bed that I decided I better vacuum up all the crumbs. It was dark outside and pretty dark in my house, because I just didn't feel like turning on any lights. (I have to climb over a pile of stuffed animals and chewed up board books to get to the lamp in the living room - it wasn't worth the trip.)

So I'm vacuuming, and everything seems to be going fine, until I turn it off, and realize that the vacuum has vomited all over my floor. It sucked all the dirt up, but I guess it didn't quite get to the canister, because as soon as I cut the power it all deposited on the floor. But the thing is, I didn't realize it had done this until I had dragged it all over my carpet to put it back, distributing ground up goldfish and cat hair and god knows what else all over the rug.

I finally realized what was going on, so I plugged the vacuum back in and re-sucked everything. Once again, it sucked everything up, but as soon as I turned it off, out it all came. Only this time, it wasn't just the new stuff. It was about a week's worth of dirt spewing out the bottom of my vacuum.

And here is where I used my big, huge, efficient brain. "Maybe," I thought, "there's something wrong with the roller thing underneath. I'll just tip it over while it's running so I can see if it's moving like it's supposed to."

If your vacuum has been barfing out its contents, please, I beg of you, don't flip it over while it's running.

Why? Two words: Dirt Everywhere.

I turned the vacuum off, brushed the goldfish crumbs out of my hair, and threw it out on the porch. Then I called my mom, who sent my little brother over with her vacuum so I wouldn't have a coronary over all the crud on my floor.

It doesn't end there, of course.

I got a load of laundry out of the washing machine this morning and noticed that everything reeks of spoiled milk. I'm not entirely sure why. I rewashed the load, this time with store-bought detergent and a huge capful of fabric softener, and now all the clothes smell like Camembert dipped in dollar store air freshener.

I think I am going to officially go on strike.