Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The day from...well, that place that is a lot warmer than we are here.

This was the day from hell.  Or close to it.  It started out well:  I slept about 10 hours, woke up when I wanted to, had a lazy morning before leaving for town to go to the library and hit the store to pick up a prescription.  Zach and I got to town and since we drove past McSnacky's, decided to stop first since we were hungry.  Had a long, satisfying lunch and then it broke loose. 

The car wouldn't start.  Not a sound, nothing.  So naturally I thought it was the stupid battery again and did everything I could to start it, including getting a jump from a guy who pulled in next to me.  Nothing.  Nada.  I'm in a different town, with no cell phone (it was home...dead...like the car) and Tom at work without me knowing his phone number.  And not a pay phone in sight.

Zach braved his shyness and asked a woman at McSnacky's if she could look up the phone number on her laptop and she was happy to do so.  So we had the phone number but no phone.  We went to every store in the mini-mall area and no one had a pay phone or knew where one was.  Zach thought there might be one at the campus, which was two blocks away so we made one last stop at Shopko before walking there.  The customer service woman let us use the store phone to call (it was out of the area code so no one else would let us use their phones).  By that time I was nearly in tears as it was getting dark and I had one headlight.  I was so frazzled when I talked to Tom that I told him the wrong location.  Zach corrected me and I told him where we were but apparently he didn't hear me at all.  So we sat there waiting....and waiting...and waiting.

Suddenly I had a thought that since I had been having trouble shifting into park lately, maybe it was the transmission.  I shifted into neutral and the car started right up.  Problem solved, right?  Wrong.  Tom was on his way and we had no way of letting him know.  So we sat there for another 20 minutes and I finally headed for home before I had to use the headlights.  I got by with just the parking lights since it was still light enough to see.  I just had to make sure they saw me.

We went home and called Tom's cell phone, which was off...and still in his lunch box at work.  All we could do was pace until he finally came home.  I explained the situation to him and found out he hadn't heard my correction (I told him twice but he had machinery making loud noises in the background) and went to StuffMart looking for me, then the library and then Wendy's.  He never even knew the McSnacky's we were at even existed.

I was in meltdown and still needed to get to the library before my books were overdue so he called in a vacation day (not to mention how frazzled I still was) and I headed out to take care of my errands.  He cooked while I was gone but I am so achy from the stress that I am going to take a hot shower and go to bed.  If I just hadn't panicked, I might have thought the problem through but in the past the car not starting was always the battery so I had no reason to think it was anything else.

I don't think I can knit on anything tonight.  I hurt that bad.  So I'm off to take care of a couple more things and then going to bed.

TTFN

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