Disastrous

Pulling into my driveway this afternoon and I noticed a bright yellow kidnapper-style van in a parking space a few spots down.  The back doors were printed with the phrase "Disaster Restoration".  Immediately, I thought of my best friend.  I thought A) how kind that someone took the initiative to be concerned enough about my well-being that they sent a house-calling psychologist to my doorstep and B) who knew that psychologists made housecalls, well...and, I suppose C) how kind of strangely ironic that the psychologist drives a kidnapper van.

Naturally, by the time I got to my front door I recalled that I was not the imminent disaster on the street and that, in fact, the phrase "disaster restoration" must be a fancy way of saying "the service who cleans up after the mysterious fire on Highland".

The mix-up does prompt an interesting concept, one that I think could be rather lucrative.  If mental health professionals were willing to make house-calls, that would probably be a way more effective way of attending to the general public's mental/emotional/nervous breakdowns than hotlines.  It would probably cut suicide and murder rates alike.  They could come and calm you or your family down, watch a movie with you, check the premises for poisonous substances and sharp knives and leave a gallon of ice cream with their calling card.  I suppose the equipment wouldn't be all that different than the hose unit and hazmat suit that the current "disaster restoration" professionals are equipped with, but the van would probably need a more inconspicuous name to quell the neighbors' gossip fodder; ("And then she threw the skillet at his head.  Uh-huh...I heard his skull crack, I swear.  Then she called him a dirty rotten soundrel even dirter, rottener and scoundrelier than her ex-ex-boyfriend, and that she was tired of it all.  Yup, then the van pulled up.  They sure are quick, and shoot if that psychologist wasn't hot!").

Life sometimes can be disastrous.

Disastrous: –adjective

  causing great distress or injury; ruinous; very unfortunate; calamitous