Did you ever have a day that seemed, in too many ways to be a repeat? The day began innocently enough, I got up, got dressed in preparation for the plumber to come back & pick up his check for services rendered, the new faucet, shower handles, drain plug & shower faucet look lovely, Miss 17 is the only one who has taken a shower yet & she says the pressure is notably improved too! Cost about half again what I expected but I’m not too worried about it, I shouldn’t have to do anything more to the plumbing in the near future.

The plumber never showed up to get the check, I fell back to sleep & didn’t wake up for a long time! Then I got on-line found Janet had already emailed me questions to answer, did that, read a few blogs & generally messed around on-line, at 2:30 the phone rang, it was the doctor’s office, all three kids were scheduled from 3:45 forward for doctors appointments, just general health stuff, but I’m trying to keep ahead of things like that. They told me the doctor had had 2 emergencies already today & was running far behind, they offered to reschedule for tomorrow morning but of course, I have to work tomorrow. We agreed to move the appointments to the same time next week instead & I text messaged miss 17 to let her know, I agreed when 17 fussed about it that I’d still come get her in town since I wanted to run a few errands. We picked her up, drove over to the Harvest Moon & got some groceries. While we were driving I was looking for sunglasses in my purse & noticed my badge for work wasn’t where I keep it in my purse, I figured it had fallen out in the car & so I didn’t worry about it too much, then as we turned the corner onto another road on the way to a dollar store to get clips for miss 10’s hair, because it’s getting in her way of seeing while she’s at school. I shifted from first to second & the gear kind of kicked back, it’s been doing that lately, when I went from second to third all of a sudden, there were no gears, my gear shift was wobbling loosely in the center of the car. we coasted to the end of the road, I should have pulled over before the stop sign but I was hoping to make it across the street & into the parking lot on the other side, the car ran out of steam though & so we pushed it over to the side & I called the garage. While we were waiting for the tow truck a cousin of my ex’s came by & asked if we needed any help, at that point I thought we could all ride in the tow truck & said we were fine. When the tow truck driver showed up he said we couldn’t all ride in the truck, I called another cousin, J. but she was busy so I got the first cousin’s phone # & called her back, she took the kids (yes, of course, I had all three of them with me!) to the garage & I rode with the tow truck driver. After trading witticisms with the garage supervisor about how Chrysler’s have a kill switch that they utilize as soon as you pay off your car & acquiring the keys to their loaner car I went to where they put my car & had to roll it forward to get into it, I tore the car apart, no badge, it costs me $5. if I show up with out a badge & I had no idea where the badge was. We went out to the loaner, the same Ford Taurus we used last time. mr 7 opened his door & the alarm began sounding, I knew the car lock thing on the key ring didn’t work at all & repeatedly pressing the alarm button didn’t do a thing with it. One of the guys had to come out of the garage & show me that you have to use the key in the door lock & the alarm will shut off.

The loaner had no gas in it, it was on “E” but I didn’t notice until we were halfway home, no biggie I said, we’d stop at the gas station up by our house, by the time we got there the alarm light for gas had gone on & it was chiming! Never assume you have enough gas in the country! We made it & as I pumped gas I got out my purse to start writing the check to pay for it- No checks, I’d written the last one for gas so I had to use my credit card which made me especially annoyed because I was trying to keep as much available credit on there to help cover my vacation, however, if things like the car’s transmission going out continue to happen there won’t be a vacation!

I am so frustrated by the whole thing I just want to scream! yes, I do have a car to drive to work tommorow but I also have a whole new bill to pay when they’re through with it. Well, the rest of the day was just peachy, we drove home & most of the way there heard my phone going off, it was a voice mail from the Harvest moon, someone had found my work badge in the parking lot & since I’m a member they had my phone # on file. I dropped off 17 who was mad about everything & 7 who was twitching from lack of tv & 10 & I drove all the way back to town to get my badge back. But between the car breaking down & something causing me to have to go back again to the Harvest Moon again it was just like the first damn day the car broke down.

I’ve been here ever since, trying to forget the whole thing ever happened. As a confirmed optimist though, I am reminding myself that it could be worse, better that the transmission went out, in town, while we were just driving, not on the highway on the way to MA in June on vacation, or while we were up there, I can still recover from this, it may mean doing a 5th 8 hour day every week from now to June but I can pull it off.