Day 163: The Worst Day of 2019 So Far
Today was the worst day of the whole year, hands down. We knew these days were coming — and I’m surprised we haven’t had more of them — but still.
Okay.
So.
It actually began spectacularly well with a final beautiful buffet at the Chateau Saint-Martin. I mean, look at this place.
But things went downhill fast.
Our 10:20 am flight was on discount airliner EasyJet. Despite arriving at the Nice Airport with plenty of time to spare, the line to check bags was comically long and we almost missed our flight. We rule-followers languished in queue hell while squirrely others regularly jumped the line.
We complained, we yelled at people, we complained some more but still they successfully butted. Finally, when it looked like we might actually miss our flight, I ran and got someone to move us up to the desk.
We were the last people to check bags for the Berlin flight and had to sprint to our gate. We were the last ones on the plane (our 41st flight of the year).
I had a middle seat between two large humans.
But then — we landed! All good! Berliiiin! A city neither of us had visited and were thrilled to explore! Good thing all that stress and nastiness was behind us, we though to ourselves. Things were looking up!
There was an easy Uber ride with a kind-hearted Turkish driver who dropped us in front of our Airbnb without any traffic or complications. This is great! Things are going so much better than earlier today!
But.
As we waited in front of our building for the host to arrive with our keys….
….we got a WhatsApp message. It was from Teddy’s sister Claire.
Her reason for writing randomly on an early (for her) Monday morning? To alert us that both her daughters — the beloved cousins we’d just hosted in the south of Spain — had…..
….lice.
Whut.
She wanted to know: Did our kids have it too…?
Standing there on a hot summer sidewalk in Berlin, I turned to look down at Willa’s scalp. I think it was a 2.5-second glance.
“They do,” I wrote back.
UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.
Of course that’s when the host showed up with the keys, let us in and we sheepishly listened to the mini tour of the place As soon as the door shut behind her we were racing around in mad circles like idiotic headless chickens, trying to figure out what to do.
Picture two grown-ass people who’ve totally forgotten how to manage stress or problem-solve.
To make matters worse, I’d booked this Airbnb with no AC and…no washing machine. No washing machine!!!
It’s baking hot, we’re in a new city, standing in a small, hot, not-really-that-nice apartment, everyone’s suddenly itchy, and we’re all snapping at each other.
Oh and no one’s eaten since breakfast and Teddy’s brutal allergies are at an all-time low.
It was a bad moment.
Our game plan: Teddy and James went to find lice shampoo and something for us to eat while I exhausted the internet’s search capabilities looking for an expert to come help us get rid of our lice.
Many calls to US embassy-recommended pediatricians (everyone closed for lunch time), lots of searches in English (and German, thanks to Google Translate) on mom chat rooms in Berlin and other places, including Reddit and Twitter.
At one point I did find a salon in town dedicated to lice removal — but then sank when I read that it closed earlier this year.
In the US (according to the internet), there are endless specialists and independent nurses and home services that will come to your place on short notice and solve your lice problem. That’s what Claire did. “They were at my house in an hour.”
No such luck here in Berlin. It’s all about DIY lice removal the way our parents did when we were little. So I told Teddy to buy lice shampoo and two combs.
He showed back up sweating, carrying several bags of heavy groceries.
No one was particularly friendly or nice.
Adding to the stress was the fact that we had an 8:30 pm dinner reservation with our friends Michelle and Joe from NYC, and a sitter scheduled to show up. By now it was about 4:30.
We decided we needed to cancel the sitter and that I would go solo to dinner.
But before that, we needed to burn/wash/quarantine our belongings and tend to everyone’s scalps. And we had no washing machine.
So Teddy packed all of our clothes into big bags and his suitcase, and headed out to a laundromat.
About 30 minutes later I got this text from him:
“Wait til I tell you about the laundromat experience. Hate myself deeply. I mixed a bunch of likely clean stuff with definitely contaminated stuff, then dragged it through rush hour for 15 minutes then stuffed half of it into 2 washers then realized that it would take 4 or 5 which weren’t available so I pulled it all out with Willa’s undies dropping all over the floor with 7 people watching me like I’m a psychop[ath killer.”
Did I mention Berlin’s having a heat wave and we have no AC?
He found a wash ‘n fold across town and eventually Uber’d there and dropped everything off there for pickup the following day.
Back at our place, the kids had been shampoo’d and we set to work combing them out. Three hours later — with almost no talking — we were done.
I staggered out into the early evening sunlight — my first time leaving our apartment since we arrived at lunchtime — and went to meet Michelle and Joe.
It was such a welcome treat to have dinner with them — good friends from the kids’ school who love food and wine.
I was sad Teddy had to miss it, but we both agreed it was bad form to have a sitter come into that situation, even if they were all shampoo’d and combed.
I strolled home on the super clean and quiet Mitte streets with Michelle and Joe, and said bye to them until 2020!
It was a rough day. But they can’t all be great.
