My life is a movie script.

Sometimes things happen in my life that are quite out of the ordinary. Strange circumstances like a toilet smashing to the floor seconds after using it or slicing my foot open during a photo shoot on a rogue piece of glass are just a regular part of my life. I also have very touching things happen like the day I met my husband playing in the mud or when my children saw me act for the first time. And sometime down right serious things happen in my life like when I picked up an old man on the side of the road or my youngest had an adoption melt down. Of course, these aren't every day occorunces, but they happen often enough to me that when something like the day I had yesterday occur, my friends just say, "It could only happen to Karissa!" Let's set the scene.


I was feeling under the weather for the third day in a row as I finished up my rehearsal for my upcoming show of "Miracle on 34th Street" at Garden Theatre as I got into my car to drive home. It had been a productive time of genuine connections on stage with my co-actors but I was preparing myself for the stress that await me at home: over-booked schedules and feverish kid as I drove down the highway. The call to my husband letting him know I was driving home had concluded and I was left with my thoughts.

Suddenly, it felt like something hit my front driver side wheel and my car began to thump and bump and jump as a horrible noise was happening. I slowed my 80 mph speed down and crossed three lanes of traffic with my 4-way flashers brightly signaling all who surrounded that I was not O.K. Thankfully, I was able to do this with no incident and was oblivious to how seriously I could have been hurt if my car had decided to respond to the incident by spinning or flipping.

Once I was off the highway, I assessed the damage: tread completely off the tire, wheel well dragging and cracked, front turn signal missing, and front bumper broken and dangling. Tow truck called, while I Periscoped (find me @theactingmom) to pass the time, parents came to the house to watch my four sleeping kids so my husband could be my knight in shining armor and rescue me from the side of the busy Thursday night highway.

The tow truck showed up sooner than I expected and started to lift my vehicle off the group with me still in it! No hello from the tow truck driver. No, "are you all right?" No, "please, get out of the vehicle before I start jacking it to heaven." NOTHING. As I sat in the passenger side seat, I felt myself rise to a higher elevation than one should while broken down on the side of the road. I hurriedly grabbed my script, water bottles and theatre bag as I scurried out into the midnight air.

My knight didn't have time to come rescue me because of the efficiency of the tow driver, so he met me at our mechanic and we drove home, with a stop at McDonald's for really-horrible-non-organic comfort food. No sooner had we said thank you to my Mom for sitting with the kids and my husband laid his head on the pillow after a stressful day then what should transpire but another unfortunate circumstance.

The bedroom door opened, little feet scurried to the bathroom and then I heard moaning. I quietly knocked, opened the door and the eruption of liquids began to pour from my oldest's mouth. All over the floor, himself and anything in between. I coaxed by poor child to aim at the toilet, but the force took over and drenched the wall, vanity, and sink. It looked like a crime scene in that tiny hall bathroom as I cleaned up my son and the mess. The couch was quickly turned into a bed, complete with a vomit bucket and I myself headed to shower, wondering why the house felt so hot.

More incidents happened throughout the night with some of our other children interrupting our sleep complaining of hurting teeth and confusion as to why their roommate wasn't in their bed. After a fitful night, I woke up to the cold that had plagued me the previous days intensified with three kids asking when I was serving breakfast. The house felt warmer than usual, but I chalked it up to a possible fever until I had a cup of liquid caffeine in me.

Took my temperature. No fever. So I went to turn the AC down only to find that it was 81 degrees in the house! Jumped on the phone to call my mechanic about the car that had been dropped off at nearly midnight and then called our AC guy. And what do you suppose happened? It would be too easy if he was available to come out and inspect things in the morning. Instead, he had lost his technician, his receptionist had quit and he was on vacation in another state until Monday. Lovely. Since my brother's family just had their AC  unit fixed yesterday (their life could also be a movie script!), I called for their recommendation but he won't be available until the end of today.


So, I am seated in my bedroom with fans spinning, lines to memorized, a sick kid and two others with boundless energy, laughing. Laughing at how much my past 24 hours is reminiscent of many comedies I've seen on the silver screen and wonder if all this craziness could make me a box office smash, if I only wrote it down.