Not the Best Day Ever

So it's getting to be time for the kids to go back to school.  As in they're starting to drive each other bonkers which in turn is making me craaaaazy.

Friday evening, One and Two both had birthday parties to go to down by our old house.  Sweeeeeeet, thought I.  I planned to make a couple returns, buy socks and underwear for the kids, get the very last of the school supplies (paper towels, clorox wipes and ziploc baggies), eat some ice cream or a snow cone, or hey, possibly both, I deserved it (see above paragraph), and maybe take a nap while I waited for the parties to end.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

After not being able to find One's party, we finally did and were able to then drop off Two, after which I headed towards the stores.  I was pretty hungry at this point and really wanted a CafeRio salad.  This may not seem like a big deal, but when you live in the middle of the mountains, you hardly ever get to eat out and so it is a big deal, especially if you know it will be months before you get out again.  I decided against CafeRio in favor of chicfila, or however you spell it, for two reasons: 1) it would be cheaper, and 2) they have ice cream so I could get a head start on my dessert(s) for the evening.

Let me back up a second.  I am driving Huz's car.  It has 196,000 miles on it and you cannot use the air conditioning because the car will overheat.  Bearing this in mind, I always pay extra attention to the temperature gauge as a year ago, the radiator hose blew up while I was driving his car (without the air conditioning) and scared the crud out of me, not to mention cost a lot of money.  Huz drives this car to and from work every day.  He goes to lunch every day and will often sit in a drive thru line in this car (idling) without incident.

K.  Back to the story.  I wait in line about 5 minutes and place my order.  

'Oh!  You know what?  We just. ran. out. of . ice cream!  I'm so sorry about that!'

said the little voice through the microphone.

Really?!  Who runs out of ice cream on a Friday night at 7?!  Sigh.

And if that wasn't a foreshadowing of what was about to become, I don't know what was.

me: 'ok fine, cancel the ice cream, no problem' I lied through my teeth because you see, ice cream is really important.

And then she gave me my total and I pulled forward and heard this HUGE

pop!!!!

and immediately steam/smoke starts billowing out the hood of the car.  I killed the engine instantly, grabbed my phone and called Huz and checked the temp gauge all at the same time (okay, I think I actually checked the temp gauge right before I killed the engine) and jumped out of my car.  I walked to the guy behind me and asked him if he'd please push my car forward for me, which he so kindly did.

At the window the chicfila dude noticed the billowing smoke/steam and he and another worker came and pushed me the rest of the way out of the drive thru (I did get my food minus the ice cream at least) and into a stall.

And then I sat there for almost an hour while the car continued to steam/smoke and cool down.  All the while everyone and their dog is at or near chicfila because of the recent controversy surrounding said establishment.  So yes, dear friends, I had quite the audience.  Be proud.  I didn't even swear.  I finally started the engine up again and turned the heat on full blast.  Temp gauge read normal so I made my way to the store where I did my purchase of undies and socks, along with some antifreeze.  Fortunately I had already hit Sam's where I bought the last of the school supplies.  I also made my returns, literally, as the stores were closing.  (Pretty sure that's every retail employees dream ending to a day.  Some crazy/sweaty lady racing into the store as you are trying to put the bars down so that nobody else will come in but she does anyhow and breathlessly and desperately begs you to allow her to make this return even though it's time to go and this return will hurt your sales for the day.  -side note: it was a BIG return as I found a better deal elsewhere)  Then I headed back to the car hoping/praying that it would be able to get me home.

Except when I got out to the parking lot I realized I didn't have my key so I had to go back into the store and beat on the door until they let me in (a second time much to their dismay I'm sure) to search for the key that I had brainlessly left on the check out counter.  

So then I go out to the parking lot, again, and get into the car and guess what?!  It has officially stopped steaming and the temp gauge is back to normal and so I start to drive.  Approximately 1/2 mile down the road, the gauge snaps over all the way to the right (hint: that's really bad.).  It didn't even rapidly climb, it just jumped there and I knew I was in trouble.  But I was in the middle of a really busy intersection (6 lanes of traffic) and the light was green and I was now a few minutes late to pick up Two and I still hadn't had my ice cream so I just kept driving.

I make it to my dear friend's house and her husband helped me put antifreeze into the car.  Huz was on his way to meet me at the mechanics where we would drop off the car and he would drive us home.  My friend, Kristen (hey there Kristen!) drove me to pick up One and her friend, whom we also gave a ride to.  As we're filling the car with antifreeze another kind neighbor comes over to see if we need help and so we start trying to find where the leak is coming from because the lid was still on and the hose is still in tact.  And then we see that the coupler (this is the plastic-ish part that attaches the hose to the thingy which may be the radiator??) has broken right off, so I'm not going anywhere.

I call Huz to update him while my neighbor gets his truck out to tow me.

I hug Kristen and am so glad that I have such great friends and the girls and I get into the car and start for the mechanic.  The girls are pretty hyped up about being towed, this is a first for them.  Luckily it's nighttime so there were hardly any cars around when the rope we were using to tow me with snapped and I was stuck in the middle of the road.

Seriously???

Kristen's husband retied the rope and we continued on to the mechanic where Huz was waiting.  Because it was now after 11 several of the kids were 'done' as in weepy.  Huz and I are pretty awesome at being optimistic and even laugh about the bad luck I seem to always have.  Always.  So when I get into the suburban we start to joke about it.  I tell him that I haven't even had ice cream.  He offers to buy me ice cream at the DQ we're about to pass.

Except they just closed.  So, no ice cream.  But that's okay, we're still laughing about the whole night when One yelps from the back seat, 

"my nose is bleeding really really bad!"

And I hand her a wad of napkins.

30 seconds later

"i need more napkins it's soaked through already!"

and I hand her the last inch of the napkins we have.  Blood is dripping everywhere so Huz pulls over and we run into a gas station bathroom.  It takes us about 10 minutes to get it to stop bleeding and then clean her up.  We hit the road again.  By now Huz and I are pretty much 'done' too, minus the weepy.

Finally, at 11:45 we're almost home when out of nowhere a dragon swoops down from the sky and carries our suburban away!

Okay, that last part about the dragon didn't really happen, but would you really have been surprised if it had?!