This has been a most unpleasant Friday the 13th. I wrote a story when I was nine about a kid who had the worst day of his life (bad test grade, grounded by parents, little sibling gets awesome present), only to figure out it was due to the date. Here I am, twenty years later, living out my nightmare. Today’s disappointments have ranged in severity to where I am now sitting at my computer sweating. I’m typing and sweating because I’m overwhelmingly frustrated. Every new piece of bad news has been followed with someone saying, “It’s not your fault; these things happen.”

“It makes it hard to celebrate,” I told our realtor. “No matter how good the news, you know there’s disappointment coming. There’s always something else.”

“You celebrate the two of you,” she said to me. “You’ll always have each other, and that’s what you celebrate. You celebrate who you are.”

Good, because that’s all we’ll have when we can’t afford to live in this damn house we just bought.

Today’s lesson: “Bait and Switch.”

Because the jobs aren’t final until the money’s in the bank and the house isn’t done until we’re holding the keys and everything that can break will break… it has seriously been a frustrating day. An expensive, frustrating day.

Stee flipped through the mail when we got home. “Baby, look. Look who’s here to cheer you up.”

He held up the Entertainment Weekly, in front of his face. Johnny Depp on the cover. stee said, “Hey, Pam. It’s okay. I’m here now.”