You Break It, You Buy It

It never fails that when hubby is out of town on an extended work trip, I fall victim to some sort of crisis.

During his January/February trips, there's always some sort of blizzard or ice storm to shake things up. And last fall, our old Honda Civic went to hell in a "need new head gasket" hand basket and I suffered that traumatic "overheated" drive to and from work. The end result was that I allegedly "broke" the car and we had to buy a new one upon hubby's return.

So why should this time be any different?

Jim left around 3:30 a.m. for the Appleton airport to catch a direct flight to Atlanta. For the next 7 days, he and I are sort of on vacation... from each other, that is. He's gone 'til late Thursday night and I leave midday Friday for Crop-toberfest (scrapbooking, not harvesting).

So we will both be doing the single-parenting role. I just get the football chauffeur and homework dictator duties!

Tonight I went to pick Carter up at football practice and arrived 5 minutes early. I thought I'd sit and listen to the radio. After a few minutes, I remembered that I should probably not run the battery down because 2 or 3 weeks ago, we had a dead battery at practice when Jim accidentally left the lights on for half an hour. Well, tonight it didn't take much.

Carter got in the car. I try to start it and click, click, click. Shhhooot.

Now last time we just called Uncle Joe a few blocks away but I do not know his phone number by heart. Thankfully my son is not the only putzer so there was still about 3 parents left at the practice field. The woman next to me had jumper cables and neither of us knew what to do with them. (No comment.) But 2 coaches were left so they figured it out and jumped me.

I really didn't like facing an hour drive to work tomorrow plus another hour drive to Carter's football game up in Wausau tomorrow afternoon with a battery on its last legs. Since it was after 6 p.m. nothing was open except, you guessed it, my second home: Wal-Mart.

Now you know I'm a gearhead. I can change headlight bulbs and windshield wipers with the best of them. But I draw the line at dealing with anything that could explode or cause my car to explode if I do it incorrectly.

So I pled my case. I was supposed to have to wait 90 minutes or so but I can be charmingly pathetic when I need to be so we got the car in in 20 minutes. An hour later than we should have, we arrive home with my bank account $76 lighter.

I just hope this means the drama and trauma for the week are over early. Please, God?

Thank you.