Careful What You Wish For

Remember (it was soo long ago) when I was bemoaning my lack of humor? Apparently the universe (I'm not blaming this one on God) thought that I was complaining about a lack of fodder for humor, as the very next night, following a looooong, as long as only cub scout events can be, pack meeting, our car stranded us in the back of a store parking lot; the kinda stranded that involves lots of smoke billowing out of the engine compartment.

See, our car, being a paragon of all things reliable, has a slight radiator leak. I was constantly checking the coolant levels in the overflow tank. Apparently, as my mechanic father and mechanic husband had failed to tell me, I also needed to check the fluid level in the radiator itself.  Minor detail, I know.

Happily - I  have a cell phone. (Sure laugh, everyone has one but I've only had one for about a year and a half, this whole "OOooh look! I'm having an emergency and I have a phone of my own!" thing is new to me.) I called my dad - DH being sick in bed - and he walked me through the whole thing. Except I was trying to be as careful as possible while opening the radiator. I knew that the fluid would gush out like crazy and still - I was totally unprepared. The fluid gushed and the lid disappeared and it was dark out and I had to have the hood up to take care of radiator but the hood blocked any light we were getting from the parking lot light and it was almost 9pm and . . . . happily my dad decided to drive out and help us.

So we waited.

And waited.

I locked the doors and walked around to the front parking lot to find my dad because he doesn't have a cell phone and while I mentioned we were in the parking lot, I didn't tell him exactly where in that parking lot.

And waited.

And then, of course, the fact that I had been constipated (See?! the universe was clearly trying to hook me up with an Amy vibe!) decided to magically correct itself (Why is it that stress works as a laxative? How does that help?!) and I ended up walking rapidly through the huge store, butt tightly clenched to the bathrooms, which were, of course, clear on the other side of the store from where the car had chosen to break down.

Back to the car, and then we waited.

I checked my cell phone - it had been over 40 minutes and still no sign of my dad.

Long story short: we ended up waiting for 1.5 hours, my DH finally showed up, fixed the radiator and followed me home without further incidence, loading my children into their beds at about 10:30pm.

The upside: I now know to check the radiator itself; my daughter learned to dress for the weather and not the car; and all three kids got to stay up WAY past their bedtimes. On a school night.

Really, fun for all.

Unfortunately, along with the adventure, the universe forgot to send me Amy's mad skillz for humor which would have made this infinitely funnier. Although the poo issues was a nice touch.