The Hits Keep Coming.

The joys of home ownership continue to reveal themselves.

Nothing about my place seems easy.

I decided to replace my bathtub only to have the general contractor tell me, uh oh, your plumbing is leaking. Well, its better to find out before it creates a giant mess, right? Right, except that the plumber didn't ask, bought parts that were incompatible with the bathtub and then refused to fix his mistake. You're going to need another plumber.

The week my parents were here was hot and muggy. My parents are Coloradans unaccustomed to Chicago's humidity. I tried to turn on the air conditioning to make them more comfortable only to learn, uh oh, the unit that was functional at the inspection is now broken. I called a repairman who said, bad news, your circuit board is fried. A new one got installed this morning only to hear, uh oh, bad news -- your breaker is bad. You're going to need an electrician.

At this point, I'm like the woman who swallowed a spider to catch the fly. I live in fear of what will break next and just how many specialists it will take to fix. Maybe I didn't feng shui my money tree in the right place because ever since I brought it home, it seems like money is just flying out the window.

**********UPDATE*************UPDATE*********UPDATE*************UPDATE****************

It was not just a breaker. Oh no, bad news, its a dead wire, residing in a pipe underneath your concrete floor. I get to tune in tomorrow to find out exactly how this is going to be fixed. . . and how much it is going to cost. The nicest, most fatherly electrician -- he brought his son with him to the job -- advised me that sometimes the old copper wires break when you're trying to pull them out. Given my luck, I'm certain that will happen. With luck, I will have a working unit by tomorrow afternoon at not exorbitant cost.