murphys law...

...is such that if everything in your life is going honky dory (i probably spelled this wrong), that something will jump up and bite you in the butt.

one of those rules would be that once you pay off your vehicle, something will go wrong. our something, in this case happened to be a $6oo job. *sigh*

so our car is junk; it is beyond repair, so i thought i would take my trusty truck to school. cuz that never breaks down. ever. unless i need to be in class and an assignment is due.

but anyway, i literally got to the end of our driveway and the car stalled quietly and died. i tried starting it. the engine turned over, but it wouldn't rev when i stepped on the gas. my first thought was that we must be out of gas, but we had just refueled. so that wasn't the problem.

i send nick out there, and he tinkers around with it for awhile before admitting defeat. he comes in, turns on the telly, and says, "you better call those AAA guys you have a membership with, so they can come and tow that truck somewhere. it's not moving anywhere on its own."

great.

so i ask him to call the mechanic, since he knows more about cars than i do. he doesn't; he's watching the game. so i call, and sound stupid, and the mechanic is probably laughing silently as he talks to me. nick, stands and hovers by the phone, to see if i tell the mechanic everything i need to tell him (which defeated the purpose of me calling so he could watch the game...)

the mechanic says he will have time to look at it, so i call the towing company, and they say they'll be over shortly. I tell them very clearly, in the clearest english possible, that they should take the second driveway, where the truck is parked, past the mailbox and fire number. the first driveway is on a treacherous hill, and it is not fun for a huge tow truck to back up.

what does the driver do? yes... he drives in the first driveway. gee, someone must not have told him, because he's not too happy when he realizes he has to back his truck up. while he's talking to nick, the culligan water man shows up and parks behind the tow truck guy.

because of course... or water softerner died too. so we needed that fixed. so now the two truck guy needs to back up and theres a pickup behind him. so the culligan guy has to back out and park on the street, while TT guy backs up our incredibly narrow and steep driveway. he's probably praying the whole time.

nick deals with TT guy; and i deal with the culligan guy, while clay decides he doesn't want to be held anymore and struggles to free himself. i try taking clay inside and he throws a tantrum. so with clay screaming in the background, i'm trying to explain the problem with our water softern to the culligan guy. its some relic from the 80's, and the guy takes one look at it and tells me that it would cost too much to fix it; i was better off renting a new one.

happily, i got a good deal -- $10 a month for the first 6 months, then $22 a month since we decided to lease one. leasing is nice; if something breaks, they fix it. i can handle that. everything breaks around here, so it would be nice not to have to worry about it for once.

oh yeah, so back to the truck...

nick informs me this morning that the truck needs a new fuel pump, and it will cost us $600. he also tells me that we have no car all weekend, and this is a problem because i'm supposed to work friday.

do i want to walk to work? well, no, not really. its a 7 mile trek... so... no.

so i call my friend becky and ask if they have an extra vehicle i could use. they do, and she says i can use hers, and then she can take the truck to work. its a really niiiiiiiiiiice truck. but then her husband decides that he would like to take the truck to work, so says i can use his car.

he even vaccums it out for me. becky says i must be special.

so... i have a way to get to work, the truck will be back next week (hopefully nothing else will go wrong), and we are going car shopping for a car to replace the much loved and faithful dodge neon. the one with the broken reverse, windows that wouldn't stay up, and that smelled faintly of mold ever since the windows were accidentally left down after a thunderstorm.

we'll probably end up with a minivan. we're thinking of having another kid; and, with kids, the minivan is one of those sad changes you fight but eventually give in to. the cool car is gone, in its place is an old-fart's-mobile, with that ever so lovely faux wood paneling on its side. it screams, "middle age" all over it. (okay, so i'm a tad apprehensive about turning 30 in a few short months...) anyway, whatever tad of respectable hipness you had is gone, as soon as you drive that mini-van off the lot.

actaully, the new ones aren't so bad, but we'll have to see what we can afford. i just want something that isn't either a non-air-conditioned death trap in the summer or a mobile refrigerator that takes passengers (in the winter). oh, and some more room would be nice. so we'll have to see.

so... i guess i'll let you know if i turn into some mini-van driving soccer mom. i think the popular "soccer mom" mini-van package comes with a complimentary cooler. ha, ha!