My Bad Day

So, yesterday was a pretty crappy day. As I was driving down McKnight on my way to work, I felt a little catch in my car and then all of the dashboard lights came on. I happened to be approaching an intersection, so I stopped and that was it. My car wouldn't start again. I stayed pretty calm and reached for my phone. That was the biggest tragedy of the day. My phone was not in my purse or anywhere in my car. It was likely sitting on the kitchen counter where I left it, doing absolutely no good to me. It was 7:30 am, where was I going to find a phone?

I turned my hazard lights on and got out of the car, started walking towards the gas station a few blocks away. Before I got there, I passed a small office that a guy was just entering. I asked him if I could use his phone, so he let me in and I called my insurance company. Of all days, Scot was actually not home and was going into Champion for some training. He had taken Ava to daycare, so at least I didn't have her in tow as well. So, I gave my information to Progressive and she informed me they could have a tow truck there in an hour. AN HOUR? I wasn't sure what to do, my only option seemed to go back and sit in my car and wait. So, I walked back and then witnessed quite a funny thing. You see, my car was in a turn lane at a stoplight with its hazard lights on, nobody inside obviously. I watched the light turn green and someone pulled up behind my car and started honking. She continued to honk and look obviously distressed and FINALLY realized that there wasn't anyone in the car. In spite of everything that was happening, I had a pretty good chuckle over that. And it wasn't the last time. After I got back into my car, it happened at least 4 or 5 times that someone directly behind me honked and got visibly upset when I didn't move after the light turned green. Seriously???

After about a half hour of waiting, I started to think that I wasn't all that safe sitting in my car. People would drive up so fast behind me when the light was green and then move into the other turn lane at the last minute - I was starting to get afraid that I'd get hit. So, I got out of my car and decided to stand on the side of the road away from traffic. Just when I made this decision, though, a police officer drove up and asked me what was going on. I told her that I was waiting for a tow but that it'd be at least another 30 minutes. She said that was unacceptable since I was in a turn lane, so she called a different company and they showed up within about 10 minutes. She parked behind me and turned her lights on, so I didn't have to worry about sitting in my car anymore.

We were only about a mile from our car place, so that was convenient. The guy there let me use the phone, so I called to cancel my other tow truck, called my boss, and left a message for Scot. They had a loaner car they let me use, so that worked out really well and I ended up getting to work at about 9:30.

There are a myriad of things wrong with my car - the tensioner broke which led to a domino effect of other things breaking, so much that we weren't sure if it was worth fixing. We have decided to fix it, just because we had no idea what we would buy in its place and don't want to make a rush decision. Scot also has Guard this weekend, so we just don't have the time to go out and buy a car right now. This was actually the first time I've had anything unexpected go wrong with my little car, so I'm hoping we'll still get another year or two out of it. It's been paid off for 3 years and still has less than 100K miles on it - I really kind of expected I'd be driving it for awhile yet. In the meantime, we can start thinking about what we want to get instead. It's still going to be about a week before we get it back, so they'll let us continue to drive the loaner until it's fixed, so that is nice.

And I left my library books (that were due yesterday) in the car.

I was scheduled to work from home today, so that was nice. Usually I don't set my alarm on those days and end up waking up around 6:30 or 7 on my own. Today, we all slept until 9! I came downstairs and worked for a few hours and got really queasy/nauseous. I ended up signing off, called my mommy for reassurance, and then ended up sleeping for the rest of the afternoon. I've just eaten a few pieces of fruit all day and still don't feel well. Hopefully I start to feel better soon...