My Thanksgiving Disaster, and Why I Am Still Grateful

I flew to Detroit yesterday to have Thanksgiving with my wife’s family. We had it all planned out. What to do with the cats, and what I was going to cook as my contribution to the dinner. I even made a vow to avoid discussing politics with my left side of the family. 

Then, as I was writing one of the posts for today, I got an alarm on my phone and computer: a carbon monoxide alarm went off. 

Then another. And another. 

They are wired into my alarm system, and within a minute, I got a call from the alarm company (Ring–I like it!). They dispatched the Fire Department, who arrived quickly and entered the house through an upstairs window in which an air conditioner was placed, and found the house was indeed filled with a moderate level of CO. 

And their natural gas sniffer pinged. 

Being 600 miles away, this was, of course, nerve-wracking. My cats were freaked out (they were let outside by the Fire Department). The power and the gas were both turned off by the Fire Department, and the gas company was dispatched. Except they couldn’t do the inspection because the power was off, and they didn’t have an electrician to flip the breaker. 

Union rules, I guess. 

So, less than 24 hours after flying to Michigan, I caught a plane–the last seat available. It was the last row, center seat, and as cramped as you can imagine. $550 in unexpected expenses, and God knows what the repairs on whatever appliance will cost. The house is 28 degrees, the cats are freaked out, and I am staying in a hotel. 

Yet, for all this, sitting in my freezing house waiting for the gas company to dispatch a crew to inspect the gas lines they could have inspected 8 hours ago if they flipped a breaker, I am actually pretty grateful. 

My cats are OK (I am a big softie), the house didn’t blow up, I got to see my 93-year-old father-in-law for at least a bit, and I won’t have to eat turkey tomorrow.

I hate turkey. 

More than that, in an emergency, I was able to get on a plane within 4 hours of the initial call, fly 600 miles, and be here to feed my cats some icy wet food to calm them down. If I had told you that such a thing was possible 125 years ago, you would have considered it a miracle. One thousand two hundred miles of travel within 24 hours. 

Amazing. 

Sure, not being with family is unfortunate. But even with all the hassle and expense, life is pretty good. I have you, my readers, many of whom spend your hard-earned money to read my words. I have good friends. Wonderful loved ones whom I don’t see enough but think of often. And I feel the world is healing, at least a bit. 

Not that long ago, Minnesota was a real-life version of Little House on the Prairie. Covered wagons. Brutal cold with only wood fires to warm up. No running water. Death and disease stalked people, eeking out a hard life. 

I type for a living. 

So, for all the difficulties of the past day, I feel grateful. Grateful for you. Grateful for my family. Grateful for my neighbors and thankful for my country. 

God is good. For all the struggles and strife we face, life is pretty good here in the United States.