Car Trouble and Protection

I've started dreading Tuesdays. It's usually Mondays - just because they are Mondays and it is all about getting back into schedule after spontaneous weekends. But Tuesdays seem to bring me trouble. If a child is sick, if there is a conflict in my schedule, or something just goes wrong it is usually on Tuesday. So one of my friends has been getting a weekly phone call every Tuesday to help bale me out of whatever sticky situation I've gotten into.



"What happened this Tuesday?" you might ask. "A dead battery in my minivan," I would answer.



Going to turn on the van and having nothing happen is not something new. No, it happens every once in a while - after all we have kids! One of the selling features of our van was that any light that was left on was supposed to turn itself off before draining the battery. Well, that is not true - I have had plenty of proof proving otherwise.



So, Tuesday comes. I let all the kids out the door at 8:40am to run to the bus stop. I go to the garage to get in the van. (I drive the van to the bus stop, so that after Chad and Halle are picked up for school I can then quickly get Sean into the van and wisk him right off to school too.) As soon as I open the door I can hear the click-click-click sound of the battery trying to work. I still try to start the engine - but there is absolutely no juice left and it just sits there ignoring me - not even recognizing that I have thrust the key in the ignition and tried to turn the engine over several times with extra animated action.



After the sickening feeling of OH NO!!!!! I get out and walk calmly to the bus stop. (But inside I know I am going to kill who ever did this.) Tuesday is also my busy day. After dropping Sean off at preschool (which has been no easy matter lately) I go and help out at Halle's Kindergarten class. Then I pick up Sean and Nicole from preschool. I drive out of my way to deliver Nicole to her day care. On the way home I stop by Rite Aid for milk (if you use your Rite Aid card on Tuesday you get a 10% discount on your purchases so milk only ends up costing $2.51 a gallon - hey cheaper than gas).



Then Sean and I come home and wait for the bus to drop Halle off from school. After walking home we have lunch and relax for a short while. At 12:50 I usually drop Sean and Halle off at a friend's house so I can go back to the school and volunteer in Chad's classroom. I leave his classroom at 2:30 to pick up my kids. We go home. I try to put Sean down for a nap (sometimes works) and then wait for Chad to come home.



Then it is time to make sure the kids have their piano practicing done and homework done while I fix dinner. We usually eat around 4:15 so that gives us plenty of time to eat and get ready to go to gymnastics. We leave for Halle's gymnastics around 5:00pm. Class starts around 5:30 and goes to 6:30. And on the way home we stop by Costco for gas. When we are finally home it is around 7:00pm and time to tidy up the house and get kids ready for bed.



So as you can see, not having a car on Tuesday is a nightmare.



My solution? First, call a friend to make sure Sean gets to preschool. (Priority number one for sanity reasons.) Second, I ask my neighbor to give me a jump. Life should go smoothly after that. But, it is Tuesday remember, so life it not that simple. I can't get the van out of park to push it out of the garage so I can jump it. For some reason the gear shift is totally locked up and nothing I do seems to work. The van is STUCK!!!!



Plan B - steal (oh, I mean borrow) my husbands car. After all it is just sitting in the school parking lot collecting bird poop. Might as well take advantage of that.

When my friend comes to pick Sean up I jump in the car too and have her take us both to Ferris. After finally getting Sean to stay I walk over to the faculty parking lot and drive off in the Mazda (zoom, zoom, zooooom.) I had forgotten to take car seats with me - so I quickly drive back home to collect them and then return to Adams to do my classroom volunteering.

I proceed through the rest of my day as already outlined above. In between all my running around I keep trying to get the van out of park and into neutral so I can give it a jump. It is really starting to bug me now that I can't move the stupid gear shift.

After coming home after my second shift at Adams I finally take some time to read through the owners manual to our van. After some valiant searching I find the section that shows me how to jimmy off a little piece of hidden plastic in the steering wheel with a screw driver so that I can then insert my key into it to override the gear shift lock that is totally messing up my day. It takes a little bit of work and patience but finally - yee-haw I can finally knock that baby into neutral.

Thankfully my mom is still around and I have her steer and brake the van as I push it out of the garage. I maneuver the Mazda around and then connect the jumper cables. In no time at all (remember I've had a lot of practice at this) the van is finally running. Life feels so much better now. We pile the kids in the car and the van. I take off for Ferris in Chris' car and my mom follows in the van. We drop the car off for him, drive around for another 20 minutes to make sure the battery is well charged up, and then we all go home.

At home, it is time to get dinner going. There is actually a change in plans for tonight. Instead of gymnastics we will all be going to Adams to watch Chad's 1st/2nd grade musical. It starts at 6:30pm. I feel like a complete nerd as I usher everyone out of the house by 6:00pm so we can get a good parking spot and a good seat. But as we arrive - I realize I'm not quite the nerd I think I am as the place is already pretty packed.

We find some good seats (towards the back) and save an extra one for Chris, who will be joining us as soon as he makes it home from track practice, gobbles down some food, and changes for bishopric meeting so he can get there right after the musical.

Chris finally arrives just after they have started. I am on one end of the row, he is on the other with my mom and two kids between us - so there is not much conversation. We enjoy the musical. The kids were really cute - all dressed up as bugs for a picnic. Chad has a speaking part and does really well. Most of all he is pleased with the spider costume I was able to create for him.

After the show Chris lets me know that he will be needing a ride to the church. "WHY?" I ask cautiously, already knowing that something is wrong. Well it turns out the Mazda that I had been driving around all day was a death trap ready to happen. Just as Chris was trying to park it a big metal rod (the "tie-rod") that connects the wheels to the car (SLIGHTLY IMPORTANT!!!) broke off and the wheels became uncontrollable.

All I could think about is how blessed I had been that it not happened while I had been driving here and there all day. And then it hit me how very blessed and looked after we all were - that it happened then and not at any other time. Not in traffic, not while driving, not with kids in the car, but just as Chris was parking on the side of the road. I can't imagine what would have happened if the tie-rod had come off while one of us was driving on the free-way!!!!!!! It still freaks me out to think about it.

At the moment, Chris' car is still parked by Adams (hope no vandalism occurs to it). With my mom now gone and Chris working 12+ hour days I don't know when we will get it fixed. So we are now a one van family. And anyone draining the battery will be walking from now on (along with the rest of us).