Well, I’d been complaining about not having anything worth posting about.  So, go figure, today would make up for the lack of material lately.  Still nothing horribly eventful, but definitely enough to throw a wrench in my day.

I already knew I was going to be late for work approximately a half hour before I needed to be there.  I hadn’t even made it into the shower yet.  So, I hurry my tush into the shower, get out and get dressed.

After hurrying to put on my shoes and socks, I say my goodbyes to Tom and walk out the front door…  to realize my car has a flat tire.

Niiiiice.

So, I walk back inside and tell Tom I’ve not got time to mess with my flat tire, and I’m going to take the van.  I walk back outside, get in the van, go to turn it on and…. nothing.  The battery is dead.  Again.

Superb.

Paul moves my car slowly over to in front of the van to jump start it, which it does with no issue.  I check over everything in the van and see that I’m nearly out of gas.

Really?

After talking to Tom about moving limited monies from one bank account to another, I drive the van to the nearest gas station, turn off the van and proceed to put every penny I can spare into the gas guzzler.  I get back into the van, call Tom to discuss whether or not to come back to the house and get the bad tire.  I turn the key… and its dead, again, already.

Honestly?

I tell Tom I’ll call him back, get out of the van, get the jumper cables out of the back of the van, pop the hood and look pitifully at the man filling his tank next to me.  He nods understandingly and, after he’s done pumping his gas, jump starts the van.

Thank God.

Once the van is started, it is decided that I should come back to the house and get the stupid tire because I know the shop I use will have to order one in anyhow.  I get home, leave the van RUNNING, and ask Paul to take the tire off the car.

Okay.

Except that I have a gravel drive way.  The foot of snow has finally melted making everything in my neighborhood the largest mud pie on the face of the Earth.  The jack sinks a smidge into the muck, but we’re able to get the car raised up enough to finagle the tire off the car – which, mind you, had no desire to come off the car.  I can see my car ever so gracefully sliding backwards.  As if in slow motion, the car sliiiiiides off the jack, allowing my car to come to rest on the driveway with a low thud.

Seriously?

Thankfully the car slid slowly, and the muck under the car allowed a nice cushioning for the frame.  We (by we, of course, I mean Paul) jack back up the car a little bit and slowly release it onto a 4×4 scrap piece of wood.

After inspecting the tire, which I was hoping only need a plug, it was immediately decided that the tire was not fixable.  This was made obvious by the lack of tread on the inner side of the tire.

Of course.

Finally, I take the (still running) van to the tire shop my dad told me to use years and years ago.  I drop the tire off, knowing the new one won’t be in until noon tomorrow.  I stop by my mom’s to pick up a check (because she loves me) to pay for a new tire because I am super duper broke.  I leave the van running while I go inside.

(Thank goodness for my mother, is all I have to say!)

Finally, 2 hours after I started out my door, I head in to work.  Aaaah.  Strange that I’m thankful to be at work, yes?  But, I am.

Work = money.

Money = need.

And, although my day sucked, it could of been so much worse.  This I know for fact.

I could of been on the highway before I realized my tire was flat.  I could of not been able to find anyone willing to jump start the van.  The driveway could of been dry, causing a hard landing for my car – and Paul was no where close to my car when it slid off the jack.

So, strangely, I’m thankful.

But, at the same time, I’m super irked.

Make sense to you?

Believe it or not, there is an issue with the new van. Go figure? Right?

The van we bought came to us with an after market alarm system. No big deal, you’d think. In fact,

*can I briefly interupt this regularly scheduled blog post to mention that the McDonalds commerical for their fillet of fish sandwich with the singing fish plaque? It absolutely drives me batty… Looney … Insane with rage and anger. Tom finds it funny – both the commerical and the fact that it drives me crazy. He likes to sing along with it!! Gah!

Anyway – back to the alarm; most people would be happy with an alarm system included in the purchase. Well, see, here’s the deal:

The alarm sets as soon as a door shuts. So, if I get out of the drivers seat and then walk around to open the other door, the alarm goes off. Loudly. Very very loudly.

Actually, honestly, I find this super humorous, and only mildly annoying.

Today when I took the van in to get it inspected, as I handed over the keys to the guys behind the counter, I explain the minor alarm issue. Yanno, I thought I would be nice.

*can I interupt again to say how much I enjoy watching Two and a a Half Men? Gosh, I totally love it. Totally makes me giggle!
Again, uhm, where was I? Oh, right:

The point here is that, even after totally explaining my alarm situation to the guys, I still heard my alarm go off three times in the garage. I’m sure the other mechanics were just overly thrilled with the ear splitting beeping.
And I literally laughed out loud in the waiting room each time I heard it sound off. The other customer in the waiting room thought I was a little crazy… Laughing like a maniac at the poor soul who was getting all the dirty looks in the garage!

Anyway – uhm. I need to figure out how to figure out what alarm company installed this crazy thing so I can adjust the settings. It has Clifford written on the fob, but I’m fairly certain that it’s probably old enough that the company has discontinued this verison. How do I figure out how to change this?!

I got stuffs to do. I even made myself a list, cuz I’m all sorts of forgettable…

That came out wrong.

I’m leaving it anyway.

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let y’all know that the van is not in our custody yet. We’re still ironing out the final details. But, the van is ours.

I’m trying to figure out a reasonable price to ask on our old van. The poor thing is not a pretty sight. But, we have put a chunk of change into that thing, and we’d like to recoup some of it. I realize the thing has depreciated. I’ve checked Kelly’s Bluebook, but it doesn’t take into consideration the handicap modifications.

See my dilemma? Oh well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Anyone wanna buy a not pretty, not horribly user friendly, well-loved van for… oh, … say the amount that we’re paying on the new van?

No?

Geez. Ya don’t have to be so quick about spitting out that ‘no’.

* Well, I don’t care either way.

* Bullets are what you’re getting.

* Except this template doesn’t like bullets.  They don’t show up.

* So, instead you’ll get astricks – which spell check isn’t helping me spell.

* I’ve always hated it when I don’t know how to spell a word and someone says, “Use the dictionary”.  Well, if I knew how to spell the word well enough to look it up in the dictionary, I wouldn’t need the dictionary to spell the word!

* My dad’s headstone has finally been finished and placed.  The main hold up was getting the carvings of the GTOs to look like GTOs.  Otherwise it would of been pointless to put cars on the headstone.

* If you feel the strong desire to look at the headstone, pictures are posted on my sister’s blog.  Oh, you don’t know who my sister is?  Wait, you know who my sister is, but don’t know where her blog is?  Hm.  Sucks to be you.

* Or, you know, you could ask.

* My sister let Tom and I borrow Guitar Hero tonight.  I think our PS2 isn’t going to work since its sooooooo old.  But, Tom held the guitar and should be able to work it for about a half a song before he has to lay it down on his table top to play.

* Anyone have a spare PS2 laying around?

* ‘The Box’ has still not arrived, Blue.  Please give your husband a hard time for me, kthx.

* I finally got the oil in my car changed, which did not make the check engine light go off.  Mark, my dad’s best friend, changed my spark plugs tonight.  That also didn’t make the light go off.  Mark used his fancy schmancy computer hookup thingee to read the error code, which is p1171.  Mass Air Filter, or something.  Mark said he thinks he can fix that.

* The top still doesn’t go down on my convertible.  This makes Tom and I sad.  If the top went down, we’re able to sit Tom in the passenger seat and go for nice drives together.  Its the only time he can see the world around him, since when riding in his wheelchair accessible van his chair sits up too tall to see out the windows.

* I want chocolate.  There is none here.  Send chocolate now plz.

I’m getting new tires tomorrow!

It’s gunna be better than Christmas!

(I’ve been driving on some pretty horrible tires for a long while now.)

I just paid off my car.  I had two years worth of payments left.  I don’t anymore.

My smaller credit card is paid off also.

My larger credit card will be paid off next week… (my payment was due yesterday, and I didn’t have the means to pay it all off.  So, I made the minimum required payment.  Now I have to wait a week before I’m allowed to make another payment.  Don’t you find that weird?)

I totally put a new battery in my car by myself. I’m like, all mechanically inclined, and stuff and junk.

Of course, it helped that my car was at my parent’s house so I had access to every tool imaginable. There was no need to search for anything. It was all right there at my fingertips.

But, I still did it. By myself. In million degree temperatures. Sweating like a stuck pig*.

My car started and made it home, so I’m assuming I did it correctly.

We’ll find out eventually, I guess.

Pee Ess – I don’t know how a stuck pig sweats, so don’t ask me.