Today has capped a weekend of craziness, drama and unexpected events that have my head spinning, my pocketbook shaking in fear and my desire to run screaming to the nearest Donut shop winning.  But instead of giving in and crawling into a corner with my Words for Friends and my favorite eBooks, I thought I’d share the lessons I have learned over the last four days.  One post at a time.

run out of gas

Be prepared to laugh, shake your head and face palm your way through these dramatic confessions of the Mommyhood kind.

Lesson #1:  How {Not} to Run Out Of Gas on A Friday

Friday late morning I have my youngest daughter, my two dogs and my cell phone and am headed to the vet.  My older dog, Bud, has been limping on his back leg and my puppy is due for some shots.  I am talking on the phone to my friend, Heather who writes Freebies4Mom.com.  All of a sudden, my car dies.  Just like that.  No warning.  The steering locks and I barely am able to steer off to the side of the road.  And by side, I mean a small patch of grass at the beginning of a blind curve with my tail sticking out on a quickly driven road.

Not dangerous at all.

Since Heather is on the phone and does not have a blog to run, a family to take care of or anything else to do, she quickly hops in her car to bring me some gas… just in case.

Convinced that the car did not run out of gas – because surely I am not that stupid – but had some serious mechanical issue, I wait for Heather.  Megan and I play pat – a – cake, my dogs whine and run around the van like -well – trapped animals and I pray every time a car is headed going 50 at my tail sticking out that they see me before they hit me.

Heather gets to me in record time, new gas can in hand.  We spend 10 minutes trying to figure out how to use it – seriously, we do NOT know who designed this can – and finally, I hear the welcome glug of gas in the tank.

I start the car and… nothing.

Pump the gas three times, try again… nothing.

And so it goes for a while until we finally give up and I call my pals at my Chevy dealership (even thought its a Kia) to come tow me.

Meanwhile, Heather and I unload two dogs, one child, three car seats and a myriad of other items I am convinced I need out of my car into her car. Except the garage door opener… because who needs that?

Heather – My Hero

We start to head to my house when the tow company calls and says I need to go back and leave my keys in the car.  Doing a u turn, Heather drops me at the car so she can go park in a safer place down the road.  The neighbor next to the road I am on comes out and asks me if I am OK and Tom – he was so nice – and I get to talking.  He says that he will watch the car while we go get Sarah from school because he just knows it will get hit if he is not there to flag people.   Apparently, this is a very high accident area.

Great.

Heather took me home where I let my two very relieved little dogs loose in the yard to christen every tree.  I head to my door because I think I am  going in to get snacks for Megan.  This is when I realize that I left the garage door opener in the car because I have no key to the front door.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T HAVE A KEY TO YOUR HOUSE?!”, an incredulously shocked Heather cries!  {I so wish I’d had a camera for the look on her face.. priceless, I tell you, priceless}.

Rather than bore you with the whole sorted story I’ll just say this.  30 year old vacant house – 1 key to one door when we moved in – that locked changed upon chaos of move in – key put on a key ring… somewhere… so that we could make copies.

We can’t find the key ring.

Needless to say, Heather takes me back to my van, where the wrecker is just getting the car up on the rig, and I get the opener.  We’ll forget the part where I had to chase him down the road because I got to talking to Tom the neighbor and forgot to get it… again.

We finally head out to get Sarah from school, learn that my husband is on his way and will be able to get Katie from school and calm ensues.

But I am without a car for the entire weekend.  And I owe Heather a blank check, dinner out and whatever else she wants.  And I owe Tom a bottle of Jim Bean… he just seemed like that type.

Monday, the dealership calls and says – “We put gas in it and it runs just fine.”

*facepalm*

I told them to change the oil so I did not feel like a total idiot.

And now my needle will never go below a quarter of a tank again…  maybe even half of a tank.  Because this was the most expensive trip to the gas station on the planet!

That was day 1.  Come back tonight for Day 2:  How {Not} to Let Your Toddler Throw a Wad of Baby Wipes Down Your Septic System and Other Dramatic Confessions.

*Originally Published 1/10/2012.**join our email list