Unnatural Sights

There are days and there are weeks when you have to stop and ask yourself what has gone awry in your world.  This has been one of those weeks.  First of all our "Big Mac" computer sent a love note last week that said, 'S.M.A.R.T failure imminent."  To my way of thinking, failure never seems smart, but what the hell do I know?  As it urned out, the hard drive was having issues and did ultimately fail.  Why couldn't it have sent a message that said something like, "I'm not feeling well.  Perhaps I need to seek professional help."  We didn't really need the drama of "imminent failure."  As a result, the computer had a weekend stay at the Apple Store.  It's back and we seem to be happier with one another now.

As it turns out, this was not the worst that we encountered this weekend.

Following are several unnatural sights.  Relax! None of them requires that they be accompanied by either an "X" rating or  the warning, "parental discretion is advised."  Nonetheless they are still very unnatural and disturbing images.

This is a jackhammer.

In and of itself, a jackhammer is not an unnatural sight; however, it is an unnatural sight in one's kitchen. I'm all for kitchen gadgets, but I'm thinking that if one needs a jackhammer, perhaps they have no business being in the kitchen!  So, why is it here?

To do this . . .

 . . .create another unnatural sight - a hole in the kitchen floor.  Yes, that is the foundation and beyond.  See the rebar?

And how about this?

It's a seemingly innocent posthole digger amidst some black earth . . .in the middle of the kitchen floor.  I'm here to tell you this is not natural.

No one should have to see such harshness!

I admit that I am not always on top of the housekeeping, but when it really does take a shovel to clean the kitchen floor something is very wrong!

This may be the most unnatural image of them all . . .

Fifty years ago this was a brand new cast iron pipe that served as the drainpipe for the kitchen sink.  As you can see, it is no longer a pipe; it has about an inch wide section missing.  This is the result of corrosion caused by all the crud that goes down a kitchen sink over the span of fifty years.  It is kind of scary to think that the stuff that goes down the kitchen sink is the remnants of stuff that was on our plates and thus went down our "pipes."  Does it do the same thing to our insides?

This, and and another piece that is its twin, were extracted through the above holes.  This entire length of pipe will soon be replaced with PVC pipe.  PVC pipe has an estimated lifespan of fifty years as well.  Assuming that that is true, we should not ever have to deal with this issue again.  While all of this is going on, we have no water in the kitchen.  This means no real cooking because we can't wash the pots and pans.  Plates and cups we can do in the bathroom, but these sinks aren't big enough for pots.  Thus, we have had way too many pre-packaged microwave meals in the past few days because the only clean-up they require is tossing the plastic trays in the trashcan.  It hurts me to say that, and even more-so to do it.  I just keep telling myself that this too shall pass.

"What are you pointing at?  I didn't do it!  If I had, I'd be in big trouble.  And you get paid for digging those holes in the floor.  Equal pay for equal work is definitely not being enforced around here!

What's this???

 Oh yeah, this is a post of unnatural sights.  Now I understand.