I took a day off from work today so we drove to the elementary school to see the children and drop off some of the hrustule from Nona. As times before, the children were running late. They were there two minutes before the bell rang.
We gave the cookies to my daughter, hugged her, and then hurried down the hall to see my son. As we approached the classroom, we saw my children's father coming towards us. I asked him if he would be bringing the children tonight. He continued walking straight passed us with no acknowledgement of our existence and with an angry look on his face. We knew we did nothing wrong. After all, we did not start this war.
Once home, we made šipak tea and ate the Zagorski kolač my mom also sent. We ended up emptying the entire box of those treats by evening today. After breakfast we went to Barnes & Noble and a few other places before dropping off my husband at the apartments whilst I went to the house to put together the new pressure washer.
We bought the pressure washer a few weeks ago as we wanted to clean the garage and the sides of the house. We did not think a simple hose would work as well so we spent money on a large piece of electrical equipment which ended up sitting in the garage until today.
My thinking was that I would go to the house and quickly put the washer together and clean the garage. I told my husband I would be home in no more than two hours. With driving time, that would have given me almost an hour and a half at the house. As I opened the large box I noted the many components required to put together. After locating the instruction booklet, I saw warnings on almost every page but I continued with the assembly.
Once I reached the part about usage, I noted that I needed a special soap. I looked over at the large bottle of an all-purpose soap I bought and decided it was not special. I also did not have the goggles needed in order to operate this equipment. Then there were the warnings of how to properly store the machine. This was getting to be too complicated for such a simple task.
In the meantime, my husband called me to ask how the cleaning was going. ‘I’m still putting it together’ I told him. He then said he should have come with me. And perhaps he should have because getting the pieces back into the box and into the car would have prevented the pain in my back. After almost an hour, I decided it was easier to do things the old fashioned way. I filled a bucket with water and dish soap and poured it over the garage floor. I then scrubbed it with a large stiff broom and hosed off all of the soapy water.
As soon as I got home I found the receipt for the pressure washer and went with my husband to Home Depot to return it. This time I had him take the heavy box out of the minivan to take it to the return desk. Then we went home to enjoy the rest of our evening which included looking into adopting a kitten as we promised the children.
Today’s lesson was that sometimes doing things the old fashioned way is much better than relying on some fancy new device. We do not always need the latest and greatest in order to do something so simple.