It's been a terrible week
for the Henderson family

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

It all started off with an over-flowing toilet.  If their troubles would have ended there, the Henderson family would have counted themselves lucky -- but it didn't.

Monday evening, after a hard day of work at the dry cleaners, Bob Henderson opened his front door and was surprised to find his family running about the home hysterically.

"Both toilets were overflowing and they didn't know how to shut off the water," Mr. Henderson said.  "I rushed to each bathroom, waded through several inches of water, and turned off the valves.  Luckily not much was ruined."

Henderson discovered his septic system was clogged up and needed to be cleaned out.  He called the Crappie County Septic Cleaners and they quickly put his system back in working order.

"As the septic guys were driving away, our hot water heater broke," Henderson said.  "Water was gushing everywhere, but at least this time I was there to turn off the water valve."

Within several hours, Mr. Henderson purchased a new hot water heater, had Fred's Plumbing install it, and was ready to take a hot shower to wash the turmoil of his day down the drain.

"And that's when the air conditioning stopped working," Henderson said. "Fire ants had gotten into the outside unit and shorted out the capacitor. It was too late to do anything about it that night, so we slept by the open windows and had it worked on the next morning.  Luckily, a repairman was able to come out on short notice."

While Stanley Sweet of Sweet's Air Conditioning Repair was working to make things cooler in the house, the Henderson children were watching cartoons on the family's 25-year-old 19-inch color TV -- that is until the screen blew up, sending sparks all over the living room.

"That TV was a wedding gift from my brother-in-law," Henderson said. "We kept saying we should get a new wide-screen TV, but only when the old one went out.  So, we went out and bought one."

Later that evening, the Hendersons were sitting in their cool house, watching a re-run of Desperate Nanny Makeovers, when the screen turned to snow.  Unbeknownst to the Henderson family, their local TV station's tower toppled over when it was hit by a drunk driver.

"We spent all that money on a new TV and couldn't watch anything but each other," Henderson said.  "As we were sitting there, in complete silence, we all could hear a scratching noise coming from the wall.  When I mentioned it was probably mice, my good wife informed me she was not spending one night in a house full of rats and that she and the children were heading to a local motel with me or without me.  So I picked up my keys and followed her."

According to Henderson, that night at the Lucky Hotel started off being the best thing that had happen to the family in a couple of days.  In the end, it wasn't.

"We watched TV all night long, we turned the thermostat down to Artic temperatures, we all took long, hot showers, and we flushed the toilets with abandon," Henderson said.  "Unfortunately, just as our children's eyes couldn't stay open any longer, a family of bikers got the room next to us and played Born to Be Wild on their CD player over and over again until the sun came up.  I think I'll probably hear that song in my head until my dying days." 

The next morning, on their return trip home, their SUV had a blowout, little Bobby Jr. threw up on all of his siblings, a passing 18-wheeler kicked up a rock and smashed their windshield, and little Shelly swallowed a caterpillar.  Once their spare tire was put on, they ran out of gas, their only cell phone died, a two-hour long thunderstorm flooded the road they were on, a goat trying to reach high ground climbed on top of their SUV and started eating their roof, and lightning struck a nearby tree which fell across their hood.

According to Henderson, his wife turned to him, jabbed a finger into his arm and said the following:

"I told you something bad would happen if you missed church last week," Sally Henderson yelled at her husband.  "This is all your fault.  And buster, you better not ever miss another Sunday again.  Do you hear?"

"Yes dear," was the only thing Bob Henderson could say, and he said it over and over again until they got home. 

If you're ever visiting Stinky Creek United Methodist Church on a Sunday, you'll find Bob and the rest of the Hendersons sitting in the second pew.  Bob is the one with his Bible opened to the story about Job.