You’d think that losing two jobs in the past 18 months would have provided a heaping helping of perspective, but you’d be wrong about that.

There was this guy, Steve, who use to cut my hair. Interesting cat. Worked on Wall Street, made a ton of money and then left to cut hair in a male-only salon. The male-only salon employs a gaggle of young, attractive girls, but I chose to forgo the flirting opportunity (a great sacrifice) and have Steve cut my hair because he is a virtuoso with a pair of scissors. A Grandmaster Artist with ninja skills (if ninjas cut hair). A perfectionist. Other stylists bow at his feet.

But he was a bit of an eccentric. The end results were amazing but the process was always an ordeal. For instance, he would ask me to describe, in minute detail, my worst heartbreak ever. He kept a spiral notebook on his station that was filled with song lyrics that were meaningful to him. Occasionally, he would stop in the middle of a haircut, open a page and ask me to read a set of lyrics, insisting that I read them out loud. He had written them down with a blunt pencil and his handwriting was barely legible so stumbling through was a long, uncomfortable process. And it was always that horrid lite rock that I despise. Air Supply. Dan Fogelberg. John Denver. Firefall. That music is an insult to musicians.

You are the woman that I’ve always dreamed of
I knew it from the start
I saw your face and that’s the last I’ve seen of my heart

By the end of the haircut I wanted to fucking kill myself, but the results were astonishing. And I know what you’re thinking. No, he wasn’t gay. Living in New York City all those years gave me finely-honed gaydar and I would have know.

Steve was heavily into botox. His face was like a blown-up balloon. His cheeks looked like they’d explode if you touched them with a pin. He use to regale me with tales of his sexual conquests during his Wall Street years, referring to his penis as “Steve.”

Eventually, his eccentricities got him fired. Too many customers complained about his bedside manor and now he‘s gone.

One of salon hotties has been cutting my hair and it’s been a total a disaster. She’s terrible x100. A complete incompetent. The extent of her talent seems to be pushing her breasts into my shoulder. What am I going to do? Do you have any idea how long it takes to brainwash someone into rendering a proper haircut?

8-Year Old Daughter got the following recipe from a friend in her class. It’s what you need to do in order to turn modest snowstorm into a school-closing blizzard. These tasks must be performed just before bedtime.

• Flush three scoops of ice cream down the toilet (preferably vanilla)
• Hide a spoon under your pillow
• Place a penny on your window sill
• Wear your pajamas inside out
• Throw an ice cube out your window

Well, it worked. We got our blizzard. This, despite the fact that Mrs. Wife wouldn’t allow her to flush any ice cream down the commode. Additionally, she refused to wear her pj’s inside out because it would hide the print and her ice cube landed in the rain gutter. Unfortunately, the storm arrived over the weekend so there was no school closing to enjoy. Perhaps the missing ingredients mucked with the timing.

Casa de Unbearable was ground zero for a water main break. The brown, muddy, Mississippi regurgitated up through a crack in the pavement. Thank bog it wasn’t raw sewage. Just the stuff we drink. The police arrived, traffic was blocked off and many panicked phone calls were made to New Jersey American Water.

The neighbors all came out of their houses to watch the approaching disaster. It flowed over our curb and, with frightening speed, flooded our front yard. Mrs. Wife threw the girls in the car and raced them over to her parent’s house and stayed there. I stayed behind, although there was nothing to do but wait.

The water slowly crept up our driveway. The race was on. Could the water company get to us and turn off the water before it started to flood inside our house? It was exciting. In the bad way.

It only took about :20 minutes for the water to work its way up and kiss our garage door. It was just two short paces away from our front door. Just beyond our front door is our carpeted family room.

My rare books cases are located a half-flight up. They’re not insured. I can’t afford the required appraisal. I was wondering how I was going to singlehandedly move a few hundred books to the third level. I imagined the pristine white pages all stained a brackish brown. I have a first edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with an India ink illustration of Hunter S. Thompson drawn by Ralph Steadman on the first free endpaper. It’s beautiful. One drop of water would send the ink running down the page. My first edition of On The Road? Pulp.

On the cusp of Armageddon a miracle occurred. The water found its saturation point at the base of my house. It stopped flowing up my front yard and changed direction. It flowed down the street to find other books to destroy. Not one single drop of water entered our house.