Irony

I looked up the word "irony" on Wikipedia before I started writing this entry, and I'm reasonably certain the story I'm about to tell qualifies as being ironic. I welcome your comments as to whether or not you agree.

The story actually starts almost six months ago, when we purchased a new 52-inch LED HD television, to replace our old 51-inch rear-projection TV. There was nothing really wrong with the old TV; it was just too old to properly take advantage of the excellent picture a Blu-Ray DVD has, and my husband really wanted to get a Blu-Ray player. So, we had to get a new TV as well.

He offered our old TV to his aunt and uncle, and they accepted the offer, saying they could put it in their (finished) basement.

Plans were made on several occasions for them to pick up the TV, but weather got in the way. Then everyone's schedules got crazy with weekend activities, and before we knew it, almost six months had passed, and the old TV was still sitting in our living room.

Finally, on the morning of August 1st, all the stars aligned (although we couldn't see them since it was daytime :-)), and Brian's uncle and cousin came to our house to pick up the TV and take it to its new home! Brian's dad showed up as well to help with the transport.

It really wasn’t too hard to get the TV out of our house and up onto the trailer – luckily the thing has wheels. And with Brian, Brian’s dad, and Brian’s uncle working together, they were all able to lift it the short distances they needed to, like to get it down the couple of porch steps, and up onto the trailer.

However, I was very vocal about how I did not want to go over to see the TV being taken down the stairs into their basement, because ever since the idea was first was brought up six months ago, I imagined it to be a very scary and dangerous scenario. I mean, trying to successfully maneuver a large, cumbersome, top-heavy piece of electronic equipment down a flight of stairs just didn't sound like a good time to me. I was very nervous that something would go terribly wrong. So, I stayed home, where I was safe from having to observe that spectacle.

After running a couple of errands, I decided to mow our yard. I was still working on that when Brian returned home.

Brian told me he would help outside too, by powerwashing some of the siding on the house I had pointed out to him as having some algae on it. Oh, but did I mention that this siding was up on the second floor of the house?

So, we had to get out the long extension ladder from the garage, which he then secured at the base with a bag of sand and a bucket of driveway sealer (since I couldn’t stand there and hold it, as I was still mowing), and, leaving the powerwasher at the base of the ladder, he climbed up the ladder with the hose and the powerwasher wand.

So far, so good. I was a little leery of him being up on the roof, but I was still busy mowing, so I wasn’t thinking about it too much.

Soon after I finished mowing, Brian called down to me. He said he wanted to wash more of the front of the house (the area above the front porch), and asked me if I would be able to ‘hand’ the powerwasher up to him so he could put it on the roof.

I was a little uncomfortable with this idea, but I figured I could at least give it a try.

So, holding the ladder with my left hand, and the handle of the powerwasher with my right, I started climbing up the ladder. I finally got to the point where I was able to lift the powerwasher high enough (with one hand) so Brian could pick it up and place it on the roof. (Thank goodness I’ve been working out!) Then I made my way back down the ladder.

So at this point my husband is on the roof of our front porch, with the powerwasher leaning against the end of the porch roof, and he’s spraying the front of the house and the windows to make everything nice and clean. And of course the excess water is going right onto the roof. Oh, and did I mention he was wearing his normal summer footwear – flip flops?!?

Then he decides he needs to move the powerwasher farther down the front of the house, so he can reach the end of the house, and he calls to me again. He asks if I can go upstairs to the computer room, open the window, and hold onto the powerwasher from inside as he travels farther down the front of the house to clean the rest of the siding and the windows.

Once again, I obliged. This job was certainly less difficult for me than the previous job, but it unfortunately gave me a different vantage point: I could now more clearly see the angle of the (increasingly wet) porch roof that Brian was walking on – in his flip flops, holding a powerwasher wand, which he sometimes did with two hands, so he could better control the powerful stream of water rushing forth from it.

Oh, but the fun didn’t end there, because then he had to go over to the other end of the house to clean our bedroom windows, and he said he needed me to come over and help fix one of the screens. So I did that, and then I proceeded to watch him continue cleaning the siding in that area – which, by the way, is directly over the driveway. My imagination was running wild with horrible scenes.

Remember how earlier in the day I had been so worried about watching a TV get transported down a flight of stairs?? I think I would rather have watched that 5 times in a row than to witness my husband walking along the wet, angled roof, wearing flip-flops, with a powerwasher in tow.

Thankfully, in the end, everything turned out just fine: the siding and windows got clean, nothing (and more importantly, no ONE) fell off the roof, and I eventually got my heart rate back to normal. But I think that was a fine example of situational irony at work. What do you think?