Life can be funny sometimes, and sometimes it can be down right ridiculous. Life with Shannon Zanger is extra special.  I've told this story so many times in the last week, and every time I hear the words coming out of my mouth it seems more and more unbelievable.  I guess I could actually turn my life story into a book, but the problem is, I don't know if anyone would believe it.  Trust me, if I hadn't lived it I certainly wouldn't.

I guess you could say that my life has been a little crazy over the past year.  My son did contract a common illness and have rather catastrophic side effects as a result, but we are managing.  We're learning every day and dealing with things as they come.  Some days are harder than others, but we still laugh and life has sort of taken on a "new normal."  However, during one of our recent trips to St. Louis Children's hospital, life got a little more interesting.

Easton had a hematology appointment in the morning, and my sister was nice enough to come along for the ride.  We decided to make it a "fun" trip and include a little venture to the zoo with the youngest of our combined 7 children.  We only had 4 with us, and considered that to be a piece of cake! And, it was...for awhile.  Yes, life was all rainbows and roses for the first half of our trip. Our perfectly behaved children were having a blast at the zoo.  We saw all of the animals that they had asked to see and rode the carousel three times. It was pretty much the perfect day.  But, my sister should know better than to expect a smooth and uneventful day when she's travelling with me.

I left my sister, Callie, and the four children at the front entrance of the zoo.  As I was walking up the hill to get my van, I noticed some young men walking seemingly aimlessly around the parking lot.  I also saw two vehicles parked behind mine and I was exasperated at the thought of having to wait for them to move.  I still needed to pick up Callie and the kids!  So...my naive little self pressed the unlock button on my keyless entry so that the people would know that someone was coming and they'd move.  Well, they moved alright.  In fact, I would say that "peeled out" would be a better descriptor.  However, because I am a country bumpkin and completely out of touch with reality, I still didn't realize that anything was amiss until I saw that my passenger side window was no more. Yep, I had been robbed.  Now, I'd like to say at this point that I looked for the important things in my vehicle, but to be quite honest I was mostly concerned that they may have taken my sandwiches from my cooler.  I hadn't eaten all freaking day and that was just REALLY going to piss me off.  I then thought about my purse, and of course both mine and my sister's purses were gone.  But, the thing that really had me going crazy was the fact that they had stolen my son's epilepsy medication.  Ok, assholes, now you've gone too far!!  Giving this medication isn't an "option."  We can't just skip a day and give more tomorrow!  So, I did call 911 but after hanging up with them my very next call was to my local pharmacy and thanks to ShopKo of Quincy, the meds were ready and waiting for us when we got home!  And let's not forget that I was the only eyewitness, so I had the privilege of riding in the back of a squad car in hopes of identifying what ended up being the WRONG vehicle.

So, my sister and I have had a great time dealing with frozen checking accounts and all of the fun that entails.  And one may think, at this point, that this is enough drama for one person in one week.  However, I told you that this is ME we're talking about and a crime spree in which eight cars were broken into and one truck was stolen just isn't enough for this girl.  The following Wednesday, my husband and I went back to St. Louis for a meeting to learn about our son's new diet.  We tried to make it back relatively quickly because some great friends had actually asked me to GO OUT!!  ON A SCHOOL NIGHT!!  WITH OTHER ADULTS!!!  I was really pumped, so I should have known that it wasn't going to happen.  As I entered my house, I noticed a sort of dark pile of something on the landing of my steps.  When I turned the light on, I saw that it was a pile of about 30 dead bee carcasses.  And there were around 40 crawling/flying around my front door.  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?  These things were INSIDE my house!  As I looked around I noticed hundreds of them.  We had a nice little bee plantation going on right in our damn living room.  Soooo.....I packed up as much crap as I could into one bag (for 6 people) and we went to stay at my sister-in-laws house.  My husband set off one of those bug bombs and we hoped for the best.  The next morning I called the pest control people and asked them to come as quickly as they could...but, oh wait, I can't actually PAY you when you come because guess what?  My checking accounts are still frozen.  Perfect.  When I explained the dilemma to the receptionist at the pest control place she just said,  "Are you kidding me?"  No, no I'm not lady...trust me, I really wish that I were.

So, we can look at the past week in two ways.  You can see all of the seemingly "terrible" things that happened, or you can choose to see the positive things.  For example, my family made it home safely after the robbery of our van, and my son received his medication as scheduled.  None of my children were stung by any of our new winged inhabitants and we have family that is kind enough to let us invade their homes on a Wednesday night at 9 pm.  And above all else, those bastards are lucky they didn't take my damn sandwiches!!