Nancy was struggling.  She looked around. Five children, three dogs, four bunnies, one puppy, five cats, and one bird had taken a big toll on their home over the last decade.

She thought about her shark-bitten, broken-air-conditioned mini-van parked in their cracked driveway with the dented garage door.

She reflected on the front door knob had been missing for the last eight years.  It was an older, custom door, and new door knob parts just didn't work. 

The back patio door knob was in place, but pulled free each time it was grabbed.  It too was a custom piece and the only way to fix it was to install a new door, estimate $2,000.  For that cost, she could fix the van's shark bite and air conditioner! So for the last nine years, Nancy learned the art of opening the door and keeping the knob in place.  Evil Baby liked to pull the knob out.  Usually while the family was lounging in the back yard, which resulted in family being locked out and Evil Baby rampaging inside the house.

That wasn't a problem though, because all of the sun porch windows were broken and missing screens from when dogs bolted right through the open windows.  It was very easy to access the house through the windows.

The parquet flooring was water damaged, scratched, rubbed, bubble gummed, and thoroughly worn. 

The family room carpet, just replaced a mere 4 years ago with industrial restaurant grade carpet, was disgustingly dirty and worn.  So much for its promise of high traffic-ability.

The stair wall had a giant hole in it where Nancy went flying into the wall when she tripped late one night over the black 40 pound cat who slept soundly on the middle step.  Ned had already patched and repaired the hole once, he was in no hurry to do it again. Though, now that the 40 pound cat had died over his food dish, perhaps it was a safe time to begin repair.

Every single wall in the entire house was dirty, grimy, finger and booger stained. 

Her kitchen cabinets, which were painted a lovely crème when they first moved in, now revealed streaks of brown stain from her constant scrubbings. 

The new stove had drip marks BETWEEN the two doors and Nancy had no idea on earth how to get that clean. 

The third microwave in four years, had a fresh broken handle.

The backdoor into the garage would blow open because for some reason the door no longer latched. 

The older boys bathroom had urine curdled floor tiles that had absorbed years of bad aim.

The ceilings all showed signs of former roof leaks.

Her back sliding glass door had no R factor as it had to be hurriedly replaced when, during the dead of winter, when baby number four was prematurely born and family was in crisis, and the toked up neighbor boy pushed it off its very tracks and shattered the entire sliding half. Nancy and Ned had never yet had the time, money, or energy to properly replace the entire unit.

In fact, Nancy and Ned had let all of these issues slide over the years, only doing the minimal that their limited wallets and energies allowed.  Back-to-back babies and medical issues had held their attention for the last seven years.

Nancy wasn't sure where to begin. Or how. So much needed to be rebuilt, repaired, redone. Ned had wooed her with his siren songs of handy-dom in their courting days, but he really was more arm-charm than a handy-manny.

The couple had decided long ago that this would be the house they would retire in. It wasn't a big house. It wasn't a new house. It was the house that saw the life of their family grow.

Nancy's oldest child was in college.  Her youngest just started preschool. She looked around again.  She added up the cost to live in the home she dreamed about; the house that was on the cover of magazines. She thought about the amount of work and energy it would require to bring life back to the old house.

Maybe now is not the time thought Nancy. Do I really need Pella windows and Honda Pilots and Bamboo floors?

Instead Nancy thought she would continue to live with her house of decrepit chaos. It was truly filled with plenty of life, albeit broken and dirty and sometimes blood tinged. 

A magazine house was probably not something she would have today or even in the next decade or maybe even, well, EVER.

She didn't have a glorious house but she had a home, five children and a handsome, dedicated, loving husband.  She had hope. She had pets nearing the end of their life cycles (except for that damn puppy but odds were good it could be hit by a car.)

Nancy reflected.  It had been one crazy-ass ride. She always seemed to have just enough to do enough. Maybe that was ultimately more important than a driveway without cracks and weather resistant windows. Besides, if she fixed the screens, the new puppy would surely run through them anyway.

The 2012 Olympics were about to close.  The Nickerson family, consisting of five children and two exhausted parents, sat together watching the final ceremony.  Ned told Nancy about the female runner who was part male and the surrounding controversy regarding if she should be allowed to run.  Their big-eared eight year old listened with intrigue.

During the Spice Girls performance, the eight-year old questioned her mother, wondering how a girl could be part girl and part boy.  Nancy attempted to explain how sometimes people can be born with boy and girl parts.  The eight year old's eyes grew huge. 

Then Nancy said,

 Honey, I think it is time your father and I told you something.
You were born with a penis.
(long pregnant pause on Nancy's part)
But I had it chopped off. 
You know how much I wanted a girl, right?
So I had your penis chopped off and turned you into a girl.

The father continued to watch the Spice Girls. 

The eight-year old stood up, put her hands on her hips and declared:

MOTHER!
You are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo inappropriate.  
I'm EIGHT YEARS OLD!   You don't tell an 8-year old stuff like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nancy laughed and laughed and laughed.  Some days it was all worth it.
Ned continued to watch the Spice Girls.

Nancy boiled. She was out to screw the insurance company.  She shook her head in disgust at herself.  How had she gotten to this point?  Nancy Drew would NEVER screw anyone, especially a nice insurance company.  Nancy wasn't even supposed to boil! It was completely contrary to her nature, but she had reached her limit.  Well, she had far exceeded her limit actually.

Ned and Nancy Drew Nickerson had paid out over $12,002 in out-of-pocket medical expenses in the first 6 months of this year.  She was sick and tired of medical bills and all things medically related.  Then Ned had to go and complain about his eyesight.  He had always had perfect vision.  Better than perfect.  But last October he found out he had a slight near and far sightedness vision problem that could be corrected with bifocals to bring him back up to the level of better-than-perfect eyesight.

Ned purchased his first pair of glasses-bifocals-but had a very hard time seeing out them.  Especially at night.  He thought his eyes had gotten even worse over the last several months.  So Nancy called the eye doctor to set up an appointment.  She was told that they had to wait one full year before Ned could come back in for his free yearly eye exam.  Nancy refused to pay one single more cent on any medically related item.  She was infuriated.  She put her foot down. How could an insurance company call the shots???  She begged and pleaded with the eye doctor.  Ned begged and pleaded to go get his eyes checked out.  He couldn't see for the love of God! Finally, the insurance company gave in; he could get rechecked at 10 months out.  Gee, how generous of them, thought Nancy sarcastically, chastising herself for thinking sarcastically.

Ned went to the eye doctor and came home.  His eyes HAD deteriorated. But the doctor told him for a middle aged man he still was considered to have 20/20 vision.  Ned went ahead and bought himself a new, non-bifocal pair of glasses. Nancy backed away from Ned, clucking quietly to herself.  She picked up the phone and called the eye doctor.  Normally she would not have any of her younger children's eyes checked, but she was so enraged over the waiting of the free yearly exam and the fact that Ned had 20/20 vision and bought new glasses, she wanted to make sure each and every single one of her children had their eligible free yearly eye exam. Thus, in Nancy's mind, "screwing" the insurance company. They would be charged for something they would not normally have been charged for had they played nice with Nancy.

And that is when it all backfired on her.

It turns out the Evil Baby, the only healthy child of the brood, had bad eyes.  It certainly explained a lot.  Like why she didn't watch t.v. or look at books, or know her shapes. Evil Baby needed glasses.  Big, expensive glasses.

Nancy resolved the only screwing she would do in her future was to her husband, using multiple forms of birth control, with his new glasses on, or off.  She really didn't care anymore.  She quietly went to her desk and increased her out-of-pocket medical expenses from January to August to $12,346.79.

Nancy hopped into her 6 year old mini-van.  The left front end was missing from an accident when her husband insisted on driving their 16 year old son to work during a winter storm warning last year. A work shift that the son had been excused from for the weather, but Ned felt the boy should still make a good faith effort to go to the grocery store in the blizzard.  The son made $21.75 during that shift.  The van repair totaled over $1,200.  Nancy refused to cough up that cash to repair it.  She rolled down the windows.  The air conditioner had long since quit working.  This was the seventh straight week of one hundred degree weather.  She refused to fix that $1,500 repair as well. She pushed up the sleeves on her black sweater and off she tooled along the five minute drive home, sweating profusely, front bumper flapping.

Nancy pulled up front to see the green tag marks on her driveway where the city deemed the front apron needed to be replaced.  Price tag: $525.  She drove up to the mailbox as was her custom, hitting the side view car mirror in the process; also her custom.  She opened the bent mailbox door and retrieved her mail.  Ever hopeful for a friendly letter, instead she spied the renewal car taxes for Ned's new truck.  What? she thought, It hasn't been a year yet has it?  $560 due by the end of the month.  She sighed.  This wasn't going to get her down! 

She pulled into the garage and maneuvered her way around nine bicycles, three skateboards, one roller skate, two footballs, four soccer balls, three trash cans, a hammer, a large pine tree branch, and 14 bowls filled with colored sand.  Upon opening the knob less door to her home (the children had pulled it off years ago), Nancy spotted the Evil Puppy digging in the cat litter box.  She shooed him away and got out the broom but the puppy began playing tug o war with the bristles and her purse kept sliding down her arm and DAMN she was hot!  She set down her purse and  took off her black sweater and headed over to the thermostat. 80 degrees.  Three children (her own) and a set of twins (the neighbors) came screaming past her. I HAD IT FIRST YOU ARE BEING MEAN I HATE YOU I HATE YOU YOU HURT ME I AM BLEEDING I AM DYING GIVE IT BACK TO ME WHERE'S MY SNACK I'M HUNGRY I HATE YOU.  Nancy interrupted the chaos and asked where might the father be?  She meandered her way upstairs.  Ned was lying in bed, fan blowing on his half naked body, reading a book about proper Olympic Weight Lifting Forms. Ned assured Nancy that the air conditioner was working properly.  That when children went in and out of a door-knob less house all day in 104 degree heat, the unit had a hard time keeping up in cooling off.

Nancy got naked and put on her yoga pants filled with puppy bite holes and a t-shirt sans a bra.  She headed back to the kitchen.  Nothing. She didn't have the energy to go to the grocery store.  She did have a box of organic CSA vegetables and some leftover whole grain spaghetti and organic sauce.  She chopped up some kale, cucumber, zucchini, and lemon basil.  She added the leftover breadstick dipping sauce from Dominos Pizza last week.  It still didn't amount to much.  She took out the bottle opener and slowly wound it around the Chef Boyardee can of ravioli.  The can opener had broke a  few months ago.  That can of ravioli had sat in utter anticipation, waiting for someone desperate enough to figure out how to open it. After punching several holes she was able to squish the crap from the can.  She put it all in a pan to heat on the stove.  Nancy did not like to use the microwave.  Mostly because the handle was broken off.  And that the insides looked as if someone had exploded a drying cat in there.

Nancy listened to the sounds of the children fighting, saw her unsupervised puppy pee on the floor, and decided to turn over a load of laundry only to find the detergent bottle empty. It wasn't quite what she had fantasized about. Really, she didn't even have a hot tub so why would she want a crystal chandelier? She felt her sweaty boobs rub up against her skin. Tonight could not go by fast enough. Nancy flicked off the stove, threw  some paper towels on the puppy pee, and headed upstairs to put on a bra. She was going out. And by out, she meant the grocery store. Ned would join her and with any luck they could find a parking lot somewhere to practice her flexibility and dirty the seats in his brand new truck.  Life really was good. It was all a matter of perspective. And proper Olympic Lifting Form.

It was late in the day and Nancy Drew Nickerson kicked off her shoes in her soft-walled office.  She looked down and saw the duct tape stuck to the bottom of her cracked heel. She thought about leaving it but then peeled it off and tossed it into the recycle bin.  Nancy was tired. It seems her entire life was spent doing things she really wasn't so keen on doing. Right now that was leaving work and going home to make dinner. Nancy hated cooking.  Women who have five children and a husband should not hate cooking.  She sighed.  What organic mish-mash could she chop up tonight and turn in to a sauce to ladle over pasta du jour? It is really too bad the kids were burned out on Ramen Noodles. Damn teenage babysitting sons feeding the younger siblings those for lunch each and every day. She allowed herself to briefly fantasize about what she would do IF THINGS WERE DIFFERENT.  Nancy would go home to a sunshine sparkling home, smelling of vanilla, Clorox, and curry in the "rich" neighborhood.  She would also be driving anything other than the shark bitten mini-van. Her children would be clean and subdued upon arrival, quietly coloring in bible pages whilst sharing one pack of 24 non-broken crayons.  Ned would be installing a crystal chandelier for her above her hot tub in her private bath. The children would kiss her and go back to their quiet work.  The puppy would bang his tail against the cage door in welcome and then settle down for a long three hour nap.  Nancy would change her clothes, read the mail which included actual letters from real friends, and then sit down and read her latest mystery.  She would get up two hours later when Alice declared dinner ready.  She would affix her tiara and glide down the spiral staircase where Ned would grab her and give her a passionate kiss. Then she would go workout while Alice fed the children. Once the children had the kitchen cleaned and were bathed and  were softly settled in their beds for the evening, she would walk in, perform a bedtime story, and then go off to her marital boudoir where the two love birds could catch up on the day. Sigh. Nancy remembered she broke the electrical cord auto-rewind button off the new vacuum cleaner last night when she banged it into the painted 1970s stair railing.  She grabbed the duct tape piece from her recycle bin.  It ought to work perfect for the repair job.  She never thought to look on her feet when she spent 20 minutes looking for the duct tape last night!  And with that she shoved the wadded up tape into her bra, control-alt-deleted her computer to lock it, and danced off to the shark bitten van in the far end of the hot parking lot. A surge of optimism filled her body and soul This girl had got to go-she had work to do!