Old Houses....Am I Right?

If one more thing chooses to screw up around this house, I'm going to lose it. If only I could foresee what it is going to be next.

First, the garage door opener died. Say, what?! It's true. After who knows how many years of lifting a solid wood, double stall door it died. It's as old as dirt so I can't say I'm surprised, but it still stinks.

What's wrong? Never heard of a "Frantz" garage door opener? No worries. Neither has ANYONE else!

This opener still works like a charm. Luckily for me, all of those pokey little metal spikes on the circuit board have pulled off enough skin from my finger tips over the past four years that they are now covered with a protective layer of my epidermis and no longer make me bleed each time I wiggle my finger in there to make the metal bars connect. As you can see, the plastic button flipped me the bird and gave up years ago.

The very next day after the garage door opener died, the dishwasher freaked out on me. It cycled through the entire wash/rinse/sanitize/dry process in about 30 seconds. Uh....pretty sure that's not supposed to happen. She hasn't done it again because I'm pretty sure she knows I'll kick the shit out of her if she pulls that crap again. I can't let the ol' girl die, though, because how will we ever find another one to match...

...the stove, which shockingly enough, only has two working burners. WHAT?! You didn't see that coming, did you? Neither of the front burners has ever worked, but when you have small children you don't really use front burners anyway. And if you are like me, you rarely use any burners at all! Damn, I'm feeling cheeky today.

I'm more of a let's-warm-something-up-in-the-microwave kind of gal. But, guess what! This stupid thing started playing the freaky music from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" the other night! Seriously. It sounded like it was just going to start flashing its lights and fly its happy ass over to Devils Tower for a family reunion. What is going on in this house?!?!?!

And, of course, no tale of dying appliances would be complete without a furnace threatening to stop working. Yep, this is our furnace. Our heater guy estimates her to be 35-40 years old but in great shape....all things considered. She started making wack-a-doo noises a couple of days again, then quieted down. I forgot to call the repair guy yesterday because she kept quiet all day, but then, as soon as it was time for the chums to go to bed, she decided to act like a complete and total a-hole and started whining and rattling at the top of her...um...intake vent? All I have to say is she better watch herself. She's in the basement where nobody can hear her scream.

When we bought this house, we knew everything was old. We were fine with that. It was a house we could comfortably afford, and it still has a lot of charm. I never ever ever want to move from this house. But, I have to be honest, I liked it whole lot more before everything started threatening death.