November 7, 2007

So last night, I left the office at 4:30 PM, started the Taurus and drove 1 mile to Pellissippi Parkway which would put me on a direct path toward home. Almost as soon as I mreged into traffic on the Parkway, the Taurus started to sound like a mini-chain saw. It has been making a slight whining noise for a couple of weeks - and our mechanic had looked at it - but nothing seemed to be amiss at the time. Well, since I have no cell phone, I couldn't call Jamie to tell him what was going on, so I decided to drive straight to our mechanic and have him take a look. 11 miles later, I pulled into a parking space at our mechanic's shop. I walked into the building and asked him if he could listen to my car. "Yeah...I heard it when you pulled in..." he responded with a grin on his face. (He later told Jamie that this could "put us back on top" - meaning that we would again be in the number one position of being his best clients.) Well, he and hs mechanic got the car started, opened the hood - and almost immediately the power steering belt busted. (I was in the office calling Jamie to ask him to come rescue me when I heard, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" and saw the shop guy running to turn the car off.) Somehow, the rotor that turns the power steering belt shifted and it was grinding into the alternator casing - hense the mini-chain noise. Scott (our mechanic) burned his finger on the car. Our washing machine backed up and flooded our kitchen (making the toilet gurgle and the bathtub fill with direty water). Charlie got into trouble because when I called Jamie to tell him about the flood in the kitchen, Charlie answered Jamie's phone and wouldn't let me talk to Jamie. The conversation went something like this: Charlie: "Hi Mommy! We're putting to gether a cabinet at daddy's office!" Me: "That's great, bud! Let me talk to daddy for a minute, OK?" Charlie: "Um...no. He's busy." Me: "Charlie - I really need to talk to daddy, please. Put him on the phone, will ya!?" Charlie: "Um...no. He can't talk to you right now." Me: "Charlie, this is important - put daddy on the phone, please. Charlie: "No." It went on in that vein for a little longer with me getting increasingly angry at Charlie and with Charlie flatly refusing ot hand over the phone. I got extremely frustrated, hung up, and called back a minute later. Jamie answered this time, I told him what the problem was, and he said, "There's nothing I can do about it now." Yeah - great night! So then later, Charlie came into our room around 1AM and clamored into bed with us. Then Greta wok up hungry so we had all four of us in the bed together and that's how we spent the rest of the night. I'm sure Jamie had as many arms and legs all over him as I did. At one point, Charlie had flung his leg over Greta and Greta had her arm flung over him! It was such a tangle of appendages and would have been quite comical, if it hadn't been 3AM! Oh, what I wouldn't give for a king-size bed on those nights! TTFN JMS