And Then The Car Died - Thankful Thursday Edition

Yesterday around 4:25p, my cell phone rang the sweet notes it belts out WAY too loudly whenever my dear husband calls. Him calling at this time usually means he is running late and just realized what time it was. But yesterday, he called for a different reason.

"Hi. Um....my car died."

It was no big surprise, really. We bought his car at the county auction late last winter for $500 and have recently been commenting to each other on how surprised we are that it's still around. I figured it was about time for another trip to the auction. (Yes, this is how we always do his work cars.)

"Alright, well let me get the girls up from their naps and we'll be on our way."

Sienna, cute as she is, is quite the whiner. Actually, it's ridiculous. So let's skip over the part where she screamed from the time I got her up to the time when we got to Daniel's car.

*Fast forward noises*

He was parked on the left side of the interstate right next to the median. Not my ideal location for sitting during rush hour, but what can ya do? Since he was 99% sure the car was completely unusable from this point forward, he went ahead and loaded all the stuff from his car and trunk into the back of the van. All the while I watched in my rear view mirror, just waiting for us to be run over.

It's funny how you don't think much about slowing down or moving over when there is a car on the side of the road......until it's YOU.

When all his stuff was loaded up, we backed up and managed to make it out of there alive.

*Whew*

At home, Daniel went to work on the computer searching for one of those we'll-tow-away-your-vehicle-and-pay-you-a-few-bucks-for-the-parts people. In the process, he must have decided to also search for what had gone wrong with the car and why.

A few minutes later, he reported to me that it was possible that he could switch out a fuse and change the car to front-wheel drive instead of 4-wheel drive, since the back wheels seemed to be what "broke".

So after dinner, out we went once again to risk our lives on the left side of the interstate. He quickly switched the fuse and I was confident we weren't going to die. But then he came back to the van and stated, "The battery's dead."

Well now, here's a dilemma if I've ever heard of one. But really, we had no other choice. So we backed up, waited and waited and waited for traffic to clear, and pulled a sweet circle. In two parts.

Aaaand, let's skip again over the next part of the story where Daniel connected the cars to charge the battery and I sat biting my nails, facing traffic, feeling the van rock in the "breeze" of oncoming traffic, but being unable to see it due to the hood of both vehicles being up in front of me. Oh dear.

Thankfully, the car did work after that shenanigan we pulled and Daniel was able to drive it home and has so far today had no major problems with it.

I've drawn out the whole scenario for you in basketball-like play moves so if you're completely confused (Katy), maybe this will help:

I know. You stand in awe of my mad drawing skills. What can I say? I'm just amazing like that.

We know this car won't last forever, but really, why replace it until we have to? I realize this line of thinking doesn't fall into everyone's head as logical. But we like our illogical, debt-free lives. :)

This week's "thankfuls":

We didn't die on the interstate the first time we visited the car.
We didn't die on the interstate the second time we visited the car.
We didn't die on the interstate as we did a huge circle to charge the battery of the car.
We didn't die on the interstate as we pulled another semi-circle after the battery of the car had been sufficiently charged.

Ok, maybe that sounds shallow to you, but I happen to know I'm not the only one who's terrified of sitting on the side of the interstate. Especially the FAST side.