When sorrows come, they come not as single spies but in whole battalions

Roll call of the battalion:

• Washer breaks
• We attempt to disassemble washer to repair it, and fail
• We research a new washer and drive out to buy it at Lowe's
  
• Washer not in stock, placed on order
• Back home, old washer starts working again but Corwin's computer breaks
  
• Call Lowe's, they say we have to go to store to cancel new washer order
• Corwin drives out and picks up $60 computer part, and then heads to Lowe's with Emily in tow. After standing in line, "Returns" says they need to go to "Appliances"
• Nobody at "Appliances", have to page someone and wait interminably
• "Appliances" sends them back to "Returns"
• Have to do two transactions, one for washer and one for extended warranty. Second transaction requires much head-scratching and button-pressing as Emily dances because she needs to go potty
  
• Halfway home, Corwin's car loses brakes on the steep downhill section of Mountain View drive coming down off the Bench from Goddard to Glenwood/Chinden
  
• While Lemontree drives out to Corwin with tools, Emily bumps head on rearview mirror which then falls off the windshield
  
• Lemontree arrives with tools, whereupon Corwin discovers he has asked for the wrong tools and Lemontree must now go back home for the right ones
• Finally home, Corwin performs digital (as in, "fingers") contortions to replace a too-large power supply in the too-small computer case, but computer still will not power on

The good news is, now that we've gotten all that out of the way, we've filled our stress quota for the month so we should be good to go until December, maybe January.

Don't worry, Corwin/Emily are fine and did not collide with any other cars or stationary objects. Corwin's emergency brake cables broke a couple weeks ago and rather than blow it off, he replaced them... which is just as well because they were used to good effect tonight.

Turns out one of the two bolts that hold the passenger side caliper assembly on the car had inexplicably gone missing -- a rank violation of protocol and a blatant dereliction of duty. The remaining bolt bravely clung to it's threads with it's metaphorical fingernails to keep the entire caliper from bouncing down the road, but sadly was insufficient to the task of actually stopping the car (as evidenced by the loud complaints the driver received when the attempt was made). Nevertheless, the one heroic bolt has received a medal of honor for outstanding service in the line of duty, as well as a new companion bolt, and car was able to get home under it's own power.

And the computer? Power cord came unplugged from the power strip. Now we have a perfectly good, slightly used, extra power supply on hand.