Why do things always break when I am at home?

In case you have not realized this yet: Tine and the girls live in Belgium and I live.. eh.. in other places. Currently I am based in Rome, Italy.

The agreement is that when I am home, Tine can give me a stack of things to do. Things she had no time for while running a family with two teenagers and a dog, a house and garden, and a full-time job (still a mystery to me how she does it).

The funny thing we have noticed is that things typically "wait to break", until I am home. The moment I step through that door, lights stop working, doors don't open anymore and locks break.

Last year, on Christmas Eve (!) coming home at midnight, Lana noticed a problem with the power lines along the street, leading to our house.

She said "Dad, funny, these wires are really dragging... Something seems wrong." As usual, dad ignored the remark, but once in the house, we found we had no power.

Earlier that night, a lorry caught one of the electricity wires further down the street, and with a domino effect, all the poles started to bend over.

Guess who was at the end of the line? Right, our house. So our connection got partially ripped off. Black marks on the wall showed where the sparks had been flying.. ;-)



No power on Xmas eve, at 1 AM... ! No electricity means no heating neither. No warm water. To my surprise, the power company came to repair it at 2:30 AM. By 3:30 AM we were in business again.

To keep up with this Murphy tradition this year, the fresh water pipe broke and flooded the lawn.



Oh and the dishwasher also gave up. And the toilet downstairs stopped working. And for some strange reason all doors started to squeak. Oh and the grill melted one of its iron supports. Oh, and also...

Today, the last bit is repaired. I am ready to fly back to Rome. I just hope nothing else is breaking before I leave. Everyone has strict orders not to touch anything anymore until I left. :-)