Sunday, August 30, 2015

The Day the Car Died

Friday was a little more than chaotic. If you read my Facebook status update, you already know that both our refrigerator and car stopped running. Here's how it happened:

Friday afternoon, William and I went to the grocery store. Typically when I take William with me, I'm only getting a few things and I walk there. On Friday, however, I decided I was going to do my major shopping trip and drive. I had my list, William did fantastic, and even had a few admirers in the checkout lane.

When we got home, I needed to take two trips to unload everything. On the second trip, William asked if he could "drive." (By ask, I really mean, demand with force.) The only things left to take in the apartment were non-perishables so I wasn't worried about letting him play for 10 minutes. But after 10 minutes, the car was getting really hot and he was sweating (we had the doors open, but it was approaching 80 degrees outside). He loves to press all of the buttons with the radio and the air conditioning, but with the key out of the ignition I wasn't too concerned. He had turned on the flashers too, but I was going to remember to turn those off before we left. I gave him his one- minute warning and then after much whining and crying, we got out of the car . . . forgetting about the flashers.

As I was putting the groceries away, I thought the fridge didn't feel too cold and noticed the freezer wasn't working properly either. I called Chris and he said he'd look at it when he got home that night. I left it at that.

Well, by 7 p.m. I knew we had to do something with our food . . . we were supposed to have dinner with our pastor that night and had a babysitter coming. We called the pastor to say we would be late. We told him the situation and asked if we could keep some food in the fridge at church. He said yes! We packed up all we could carry and Chris went to get the car . . .

But it was dead. And he couldn't get the key out of the ignition. The evening wasn't going well at all. We took the truck instead and made a stop at the grocery store to return what I had just purchased and brought the rest to church. We made it to dinner just over an hour late, but they were forgiving and we all had a wonderful time.

On Saturday morning, Chris looked up possible solutions to fix the car online. He found a couple of things worth trying, thankfully the one that required the least amount of labor worked! He got the key out of the ignition. But when he tried to start the car again, it wouldn't make a noise. He went battery shopping with the truck, which seemed to take all morning as the first place he went didn't have the battery we needed. But by 1 p.m., he was home and had the new battery installed! Just in time for us to go to a pool party we had been invited to with is co-workers! Hooray!

So, no more "driving" for William, because mom forgot to turn off the flashers. (sad face)


(This video was taken during a previous "drive")


Stay tuned for the update on the refrigerator. As of right now, the repair man is coming tomorrow morning!

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