a day of win.
I rise early, for at any moment I can be called into work. I must drive Kristin's car because twice in the past week the power steering has gone out in my own special vehicle. And by 'gone out', I don't mean we ran out of power steering fluid. I mean that my belt has been sheared in half twice by some mysterious ghost raccoon thing that haunts my car and screams out like a banshee when I turn my vents on defrost. So after Christmas it must go right on back to Tipton's Automotive. But my car isn't part of the story.
It begins with me getting into my head the bright idea of buying Mom a new coffee pot since hers kicked the ole coffee pot bucket. And maybe a new toaster. The toaster idea came about around 9 AM when black smoke came spiraling up out of our current toaster as I was making breakfast. I ended up setting it in the garage to think about what it had done.
Work had ended up not calling me, so I get Kristin and Alisha up so we can make a simple trip to Wal*Mart to look at assorted kitchen appliances. So we get into Kristin's car. It won't start. So we have three cars at our hands and cannot really drive any of them (Billy's truck is a standard...and well, fuck that). Kristin, however, insists that we can jump her car with mine. So I back out and maneuver my poor Kia near her Mustang, taking up the whole road and working my biceps mighty hard in the process. We pop our hoods. My battery is covered in light green crust. No worries though, we just scrape it off and attach our cables. Miraculously no one died. I back my car into its position by the mail box and Kristin drives hers into the garage so we can attach it to the car battery charger and hopefully die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Finally we are on the road. We go through KFB to cash a check, and we head towards our destination, Wal*Mart. But something is amiss. The car...white smoke is billowing out of the back, it smells like citrus gasoline, and the engine is thumping so hard I actually feel like I'm on the inside of a vibrator. Suddenly the front end is engulfed in smoke. We manage to pull it into O'Brian's Archery store in Summit and we call Dustin to come pick us up. He is not very happy about this. While we wait we walk over to Community Trust Bank and cash another check and steal cookies. Then we go into, mind you we are three out of place girls, the archery store full of creepers in camo and tell them we have to leave our car there.
We enjoy a thrilling ride in Dustin's car as he shows us exactly how one puts the pedal to the metal. Shaken and stirred, we hobble into the house. I then decide I might as well clean a bit while the parents are out. Alisha takes laundry, Kristin takes the bathroom, and I pick up the living room and kitchen.
Alisha yells at me to come downstairs because she doesn't remember how to run the washer. So I flip it on. There is another problem. She didn't put any clothes in. So I flip it back off. As the knob twists to 'off', the hose next to the dryer bursts.
And when I say 'bursts', I fucking mean 'bursts'. I am showered in hot water that is shooting up and outward as I begin to scream 'Oh no! No! No! Shit! No!' and fall back against the wall of the laundry room. I run for the phone to call Mom, Billy, Jesus, a plumber, anyone who could possibly help turn the water off. Kristin bravely runs into the line of fire to try to twist the valve shut. We yell at Alisha to get a bucket to shield the flow of water out of Kristin's face as I am screaming into the receiver at Mom. Alisha runs back with a bucket and holds it over her head, which was really not helping. I throw Kristin a shirt to use as she is fighting the valve and she gets it shut off.
At this point all three of us are soaking wet and there is about two inches of water in the laundry room, all over our clean clothes, downstairs bathroom, and hallway carpet. We have nothing really to soak up the water so we decide to throw all of the dirty laundry in the house down on the floor to try and absorb some of the water.
So here I am, slowly mildewing and waiting while Papaw fixes our 'leaky' valve.
And I just got the call stating I am free to come into work tomorrow.
And my dog just vomited in the floor.
Its been a good day.