What fresh hell is this?

My biorhythms must be off. Or the world's tilting funny on its axis. Maybe both. Our washer broke. The truck died (ok, I helped a little by leaving the door ajar). My neighbor called me about her television being all in Spanish. The dog's got a bad tooth and howls all the time. There's a woodpecker pecking on our house.

Yes, you read that right. Each morning at 5:30 am a bird begins hammering on the front of my house. At first, I thought it was a bird trapped in the attic but upon further investigation the sound was coming from the outside. As I exited the front door, the varmit flew off into a tree, thus ending his morning repartee. Not witty, mind you, at least not to me.

The dog has just come off her 5:30 am rotation of whining loudly at the backdoor and has been replaced by this new hell on wings.

If you think you're in control of anything, guess again. The universe is out to get you.