Ox in the Meyer?

November 4, 2007 Today was Becca’s 14th birthday. The day started out like any typical Sunday morning: get the kids up; get ready, go to church. We came home and enjoyed a nice Sunday afternoon nap. About 3:00 I started dinner – Becca requested a special chicken dish that she likes – we call it sweet and sour chicken. I got the chicken browned, the veggies chopped and sautéed, and the dish in the oven to bake. I then cleaned strawberries and cut up the traditional Sunday pineapple. I set the table (we had 10 people) and got ready to make the rice. I decided to use minute rice in the interest of time. When I added the rice and stirred, to my dismay these little corpses started floating to the top. This was a BRAND NEW box of minute rice – one of the big ones purchased at Sam’s or Costco. Well, I had some regular rice (a 5 pound bag), so I got some water going and measured the rice out. When the water boiled poured in the rice and stirred. Yep, you guess it, more weevils. I had to send Rod to the store for minute rice – after all how can you have sweet and sour chicken without the rice? I was almost afraid to pour the rice when he got back, but no little corpses came floating up. I got ready to throw the salad together, and opened the new package – expiration date 4-10-07. The salad had so much wilted and spoiled leaves that I had to pick through it to get enough to serve. (I did this while Rod was out buy rice on Sunday). That made me so mad! Finally we sat down to dinner. The meal went well and everyone got enough to eat. Time to clean up – Allen and Ashley did the dishes. All at once Allen said the sink was clogged. I mean, this was par for the course today. So I went and got the plunger and plunged away. He turned on the disposal and things seemed to be moving. A couple of minutes later, Rod said, “Hey, what’s all this water on the floor. Water was oozing under the laundry room door into the dining room. We opened the door and the whole laundry room and pantry floor was flooded – Like 2 inches of water and it was moving fast! I yelled at Allen and Ashley to turn of the water now! It as really gross – bits of rice, salad, plates scrapings, were floating in the water. Nasty! I ran and got all the beach towels I could find and we started sopping up water. Brother Wheeler was in his white shirt and tie but just pitched in and helped. We had to clear everything out of the pantry that was on the floor, boxes of stuff from the cannery from our food storage. The boxes were wet, but will dry out quickly. And everything in the boxes was canned, so there should be no damage there. We went to Home Depot after our company left and got some Drano. We hoped it would work over night. It didn’t. Rod is calling a plumber today and we will have to have the line cleaned out. Thankfully, our bathroom lines worked and could shower and use our toilets. I’m sure the Wheeler’s will never forget their Sunday dinner experience at the LaMunyons! Hopefully the will come back another time and it won’t be such a disastrous day. By the way, Happy Birthday, Becca!