Amityville Horror? No, just my regular residence.

Out of the twenty-two Mondays of 2010, this was hands down the shittiest. It started shitty, revved up to shittier, and if I don't quit reading my novel du jour, we might reach superlative levels of shittiness. Consider the following.

I awoke from a less than restful slumber at 7:30 a.m. to what sounded like a herd of buffalo running sprints on the rooftop. Roofers...already. I could have buried my slightly throbbing head under the pillow and eked out a few more hours of sleep...but then I heard my mother shrieking something unintelligible. I knew it was bad, because then all she could get out was "Oh my God,"and she had that tone she gets when she's trying not to cry, but the cry is winning.

At this point I was wide awake. My first thought was that Quito had eaten one of her cats. I did some quick mental calculations of the contents of my bank accounts to see if I had enough for deposit and first months rent, and therefore enough incentive to save his life. But just as I was about to leap out of bed and defend him from certain death, I smelled his unmistakeable stench and felt his fuzzy mullet tickling my foot. Sweet relief.

My second thought was that the roofers had destroyed her koi pond. That would suck.

Suddenly, I heard her shouting from the backyard. "Get your $@&%* off the roof! GET OFF THE ROOF RIGHT NOW!"

I groggily rolled off my bed and peeked out of my bedroom door. My mother was storming down the hallway.

"Come look at what your father did!" She was raging! Gingerly, I followed her to her bedroom. She led me to the doorway of the master bathroom...which seemed uncharacterstically sunny and warm...splintery and fiber glassy. There was a giant hole in the ceiling above the shower.

"Your father decided to put a skylight in the bathroom!"

The wee hours are not my finest cognitive moments, but I could tell from my mom's caustic tone and the unorthodox shape of the hole that this was not a planned renovation. He had fallen through the roof.

I quickly assessed the damage. No Dad on the floor. No blood on Mom's hands. He must still be alive. I walked out to the living room and found him sitting on the couch, looking very humble. His legs were scratched and his pants were torn, but I think his pride had taken the brunt of the fall.

"I told you to stay off the roof," I chastised.

He nodded. "I broke a coffee cup this morning. Maybe that was a bad omen. Maybe someone's trying to tell me something."

If only the string of misfortune had ended with a broken cup and a hole in the roof.

To be continued...