Trying to make lemonade from lemons, and ending up with sticky pulpy stuff.

Aug 10, 2010 10:36

I mean that as a life metaphor, not literally.

I was on the road for 31 days. Ted was on the road for 14 days. We met up at Put-In-Bay so we could actually see each other some this month (he called it a vacation, I called it work with a husband bonus), and we left the island at 6:00 am yesterday on the Mustang Sally bus.

We pulled into our drop-off point in Nashville at 3:00 pm, where my sister Adrienne drove her babysitting charges in their parent's van to pick up Ted, to take him back to our car, which he drove to pick up me and all our stuff.

Loaded stuff in car, which meant car was pack within an inch of its life (3 large suitcases, two big backpacks, fiddle, mandolin, various bags of snacks, boxes of CDs from Ted's parents, a quilt, a bicycle...). Car won't start for some reason. Jump car (which means unpacking trunk to get at the jumper cables). Car goes "Put---put-put-put---put---pbth" about two blocks down the road. We coast into a Walmart parking lot.

I call the roadside assistance that we have through our health insurance, only to be told that I'm no longer enrolled in the program and I'll have to pay for the tow. Would I still like a truck? Yes, I need a truck.

I call the insurance company to growl, and actually got the matter resolved. Don't have to pay for the truck. Good. However we were driving the car to a body shop to get the front right headlight fixed from when someone smashed into Ted a month ago in the first place, so now there was stress over weather we'd make it in time to pick up our rental car. Neither Ted or I have eaten anything all day, so I bought a bag of Cheetos.

As I was sitting on the bench eating them angrily, I burst out at Ted, "If this were a book, I'd be trying to get home but I'd be fighting monsters and solving riddles from sly creatures and casting magic spells instead of sweating in 100 degree heat dealing with stupid people!"

Ted replied, "Well, the insurance company is a sly creature, and you solved that riddle. And maybe the car is that thing on your quest that you have to give up before you can get home."

I gave him a fishy look. "If that's the case, where are my damned ruby slippers?"

"Do you *want* me to dig your red heels out of the car?"

"Ok, if this is an adventure, what are my Cheetos?"

"Stale bread."

"Hmm."

In the end, we decided our tow truck driver was a helpful gnome, and that our bad luck was pretty balanced by good luck: this tow company didn't usually take calls after 3:30, but it did yesterday. The body shop/rental car place was willing to stay open for an extra half hour so we could deal with that exchange, and oddly the only rental car they had left was a minivan, which fit all our junk much better and even left a seat open so we could turn around and drive back the way we had come to pick up Adrienne from her babysitting job!

I finally walked in the door of my house at 6:45 pm. I'm not leaving the house for anything today.
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