I should be grateful my kids knocked a large hole in their bathroom tile. You see, it’s because of the hole that I now have a hair dryer. And I haven’t had a hair dryer in at least three years now.

Actually, that’s not exactly true. My mother bought me one (at my request) for Christmas this past year. It was red, my favorite color. I loved it. At that point, I’d been at least two and a half years without any way to dry my hair, other than letting it air dry.

Within a week of opening my Christmas present, my 15-year-old daughter announced that her hair dryer was broken. Obviously, my hair dryer was needed far more by my daughter than by me.

For the past six months, I have enjoyed visitation rights every Sunday morning with my hair dryer. It’s not my favorite arrangement regarding my hair dryer, but what’s a mom to do? At least my hair is dry in time for church.

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The hair dryer I had before the one my mom gave me was a cheap one I bought for myself. I think it cost something like $8 at the dollar store. It was some no-name brand of which I’d never heard. I only bought it because I knew I’d be taking it to various camps as part of my job as 4-H agent. I didn’t want to lose or leave behind a more expensive model. After all, I just needed it to be able to dry my hair. I didn’t need fancy extras. Plain and simple would work great.

That particular hair dryer worked for a couple of years, but one day very shortly after Jon and I got married it shot flames at my head when I turned it on. I promptly threw it into the trash can.

You might wonder why I didn’t go out that very day and buy a new one.  Looking back, I have wondered the same thing as well.  As best as I can figure, Jon was so sick during the first few months of our marriage, in and out of hospitals, that I just never got around to buying one. A new hair dryer wasn’t exactly my top priority when my new husband was on the verge of death.

By the time Jon was finally on the road to recovery, the need for a  new hair dryer was no longer at the forefront of my mind.  I’d remember only on Sunday mornings, when I didn’t want to go to church with a wet head.  Fortunately, for Christmas that year, my daughter Maddie got a hair dryer from a cousin. She happily shared with me, mostly because at the age of 13 she didn’t really care about blow drying her own hair. I even got to keep her hair dryer in my bathroom. It was a great situation … at least until we moved.

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I don’t know why the move changed everything, but once we got settled into our new home I discovered Maddie’s hair dryer was now permanently housed in Maddie’s room instead of the master bathroom. It really shouldn’t have a been a big deal, but somehow it sure felt like one. Every time I wanted to blow dry my hair, I had to walk all the way across the entire house to Maddie’s bedroom, ask to borrow the hair dryer, trek all the way back across the entire house to my bathroom to use it and then all the way back to return it to Maddie.  Whew! I get tired just thinking about all that walking and borrowing and returning.

So, I’m being a bit dramatic. I don’t live in a huge house, but it was a clunky sort of way to handle the hair dryer issue. Obviously I needed one of my own to keep in my bathroom.

But before I got the chance to buy one for myself, the one and only outlet in the master bathroom suddenly quit working. Now it was pointless to even borrow Maddie’s blow dryer. The only way to get my hair dry was to just go and use it while standing in her bedroom. I hated that even more than walking back and forth between her room and my bathroom.

I wanted a hair dryer of my own, but it felt ridiculous to go buy a new one when money was tight (and it is always tight when you have five kids and only one working parent) and I didn’t have a way to use it as the outlet in my bathroom was broken.

My handsome hubby tried to repair the outlet, but he never could get it working quite right. This would be a job for an electrician. Again, with money tight (and money is always tight when you have five children and only one working parent), hiring an electrician to make a house call to repair a single outlet wasn’t exactly at the top of our priority list.

The hair dryer would have to wait.

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Of course, I already mentioned that my mother bought me a nice red hair dryer for Christmas. But then Maddie’s hair dryer broke … and since my bathroom outlet didn’t work and she needed a blow dryer more than me, there I was once again without a hair dryer to fix my hair. A ridiculous situation that it seemed would remain unresolved.

That’s when my kids knocked a hole in the tile of their bathroom shower. You’d think I would be mad about a hole in the wall, and truthfully in the beginning I was a bit angry over a hole. How on earth does one knock a hole in tile? I still don’t know the answer to that question. However, if it weren’t for the hole getting knocked in the wall of the bathroom, my hair dryer problem might never have been solved.

Originally, Jon planned to repair the hole himself. It’s less money that way, and, as I’ve already mentioned a couple of times, when you have five kids and only one working parent money is always tight.  Besides, with my three kids having just left to spend six weeks in Germany visiting their dad, we figured our current family of four could easily share one bathroom until Jon had time to fix the hole. There was no rush to get the hole in the bathroom tile resolved.

However, sharing one bathroom turned out to be much harder than we originally thought. And the time passed by much quicker than we imagined it would. Suddenly, only a week remained until our trio returned home. That’s when we realized there was no way Jon had the time or tools to repair the hole in the bathroom shower. What we needed was a handyman to come fix the hole for us.

So Jon hired a couple of guys, who showed up yesterday to mend the tile.  While they were here, Jon had them fix the outlet in the master bathroom as well.

Yes! Problem solved!

Tonight, I went shopping …  and came home with a new hair dryer (a teal one, which is my next favorite color), a pretty little basket lined with a linen cloth, and a small black corner table that fits perfectly underneath the outlet in my bathroom.  In short order, Jon and Meg had my table assembled and sitting in the bathroom, with the basket sitting on top of the table and the hair dryer sitting in the basket.

It only took me three years and $500 to replace my old hair dryer.

By the way, if you happen to need me over the next few days, you’ll likely find me in the bathroom blowing drying my hair.