She woke up bright and early on Sunday morning, a tad annoyed that her 17 month old son had decided the whole family needed to GET UP NOW! Still, it seemed like it would be a good day.
They planned to go to church, for starters; something they hadn’t been able to do for a long time.
After the family was showered and dressed, she and her husband cooked breakfast and everyone ate. While they ate, her husband suddenly stopped and began making odd faces. He’d gotten something stuck in the gums of one of his teeth and it would not come out.
He tried flossing, brushing, and toothpicks, and the food was still wedged between his tooth and gums.
Despite his tooth pain, and in plenty of time to be early for church, they loaded up the car. As she turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened.
click click click
‘Oh, no’, she thought.
Her husband pulled his car around and got out the jumper cables. After following all proper procedures for a jump start, she tried to turn on the car again.
Nothing.
click click click
Sigh. So, back in to the house they went, unloading all the kids and supplies. She sat and nursed her 17 month old while her husband and 3 year old went out to clean out the other car and move the car seats over.
Her husbands car was smaller and would be far more cramped, but it would have to do as the ‘family’ car until they could figure out what was wrong with her SUV.
They weren’t outside for long, though. After just a few minutes, they came back inside.
After listening to her 3 year old tell an excited story about “cleaning out Daddy’s car”, her husband told the truth: “No, we did not clean out my car. The minute I turned the car on, the power steering went out.”
She paused for a moment, mouth agape, before busting out into laughter. “Are you kidding me?” she asked.
“Nope.” he replied.
Heaving a big sigh, she grabbed her phone and called her Dad. A mechanic, he usually could guide her right, car-wise. Dad said he was on his way over to help, and she took the opportunity to put the baby down for a nap.
Minutes before her Dad arrived, the baby woke up. Her husband picked him up, and he immediately snuggled in for a “Daddy Shoulder Snooze”.
Snoozing on Daddy
It was so comfortable, apparently, that he snoozed there for two hours. Long after her Dad (Grandpa) had said he couldn’t do anything to fix the cars, long after they needed to head to town to pick up essential supplies for the week, long after lunchtime, the baby snoozed, effectively prohibiting them from doing anything productive.
Finally, he woke up. After a quick lunch for everyone, they headed in to town. First stop: the auto parts store, where for $10, they got new fuses for the power steering that, fortunately, fixed that particular problem.
With one fully functioning vehicle, they headed for groceries.
While at the grocery store, she saw a sign for $15 off a turkey if accompanying a $50 purchase. She knew she’d be spending that much, so she decided to go ahead and get the Thanksgiving turkey.
It seemed the day had finally taken a turn for the better.
The whole family arrived home, the groceries were unloaded, and her husband jumped back in the car to head off to a photo shoot.
She headed in to the kitchen to make dinner for her 3 year old and herself. She’d planned ahead and had lots of yummy leftovers in the fridge, so she expected this would be an easy task.
While grabbing the bowls of food out of the fridge, her 3 year old decided he HAD to have a treat from the freezer. In the balancing act that followed, trying to lean over to avoid being slammed in the knees by the freezer door and keeping the food in hand, her grip slipped and the bowls fell down on the bottom edge of the fridge.
And the bottom-most bowl, filled with an entire cooked, picked pot roast, shattered into a million pieces in her hands.
Glass flew everywhere! It was in the fridge, the seal of the freezer door, the floor, her clothes, and the bowl she was holding had turned into sharp edges of knives cutting in to her fingers.
After ordering her son to leave the kitchen pronto, she hussled the food bowls safely to the kitchen counter, and grabbed a paper bag to deposit the broken glass she was holding. She was grateful that, though it certainly felt like she was holding on to broken glass, she appeared to have escaped unscathed.
A few minutes in to sweeping up the mess, however, she realized she was wrong. She had bled all over the broom handle without even realizing.
The two cuts on her fingers were not too bad, but were the type that don’t register pain at first…meaning they were a tad deeper than anyone could want.
Walking wounded aside, it also meant that her ‘quick dinner’ idea of leftover pot roast was in the garbage – literally – and she had nothing to eat for dinner.
So she finished heating up food for her son and grabbed a steak from the freezer for herself to begin thawing.
Long after her son had refused to eat any of his dinner by way of crying tantrums, she finally ate. And then it was bedtime.
She stuffed the boys into their pajamas, clean diapers, and got them ready for bed. As she laid down with the boys, one nursing quietly and calmly, and the 3 year old bouncing, wiggling, rolling, thrashing, and occasionally giggling, she felt a sense of dread come over her.
Sure enough, the antics of the 3 year old discouraged the baby from falling asleep, and as soon as his belly was full of milk he popped up with a smile, ready to play.
She cried ‘uncle’, and took the kids back to the living room. Letting them burn off some more energy seemed an easier task than fighting to get them to sleep for the next two hours.
So she cleaned the kitchen and had the house almost ready to close up for the night, when the cries and whining from the living room told her that, an hour and a half after bedtime, the boys were finally ready to fall asleep.
So back to bed they went, and this time, both boys fell asleep.
Unfortunately, so did she. This is unfortunate only because the next morning, she woke to find that the Thanksgiving turkey she’d bought for such a good price the day before was still in its shopping bag in her dining room. Falling asleep so early, she hadn’t realized it had not been put away, nor did her husband realize it when he got home from his photo shoot.
It did still feel very cold, and frozen inside (though the outside was softer to the touch in places) so she put it in the freezer and said a little prayer that no one who eats it will contract food poisoning on Thanksgiving.
After rescuing the turkey from thaw-dom, she called the mechanic shop she and her husband use and got some pointers on how to try and fix her car. If those tricks didn’t work, they said she’d need to tow her car in to them.
She also spoke with her husband, who reported that the tooth pain was worse and that he would need to visit the dentist to have the problem fixed.
The car tricks didn’t work, and she called a tow truck driver.
The mechanics called and not only is her battery shot, but the water pump is leaking.
She should have her car back sometime on Wednesday.
She spent two days looking around for the Candid Camera, sure that this was some sick prank being played on her.
But, nope. Murphy just decided to unleash his Law on her family this weekend.
She’d like to kick Murphy’s butt. Or kick back a cocktail, either one.
Do you ever have days like that?
__________
Yes, every word of this story is true, and is exactly what happened on Sunday and Monday. When I started writing it in first-person, though, it sounded WAY too much like whining, so I thought I’d shake things up a bit.
Seriously, though? TWO cars down, a dentist visit, a ruined pot roast (when we’re almost out of safe beef for me and can’t get our cow in to butcher until December), cuts on my fingers, wild child bedtimes and a tow truck ride all at once? Ugh!
The only thing that made the whole last two days bearable was the fact that ZAC CAN EAT QUINOA!!!
That little fact is gonna make rainbows out of storm clouds for a long time for me!!
