Yesterday's Adventures...

So yesterday morning, I must have had some sort of target on my back for all of life's little, but oh so exasperating inconveniences, because I certainly encountered each and every one of them.

First, I woke up later than I ought to have done. I got the chiddlers up and moving, and then I went to get myself ready. At this point, I looked at the clock, and things were looking pretty good timing-wise. I finished getting dressed, and that's where things went wrong.

The chiddlers both were taking their sweet time eating their breakfast, and it took a lot of motivation on my part to get them back on track. And then I started remembering all of the things I had to do before we left, and I had done none of them. Making CT's lunch, getting his homework signed, combing and styling AJ's hair and helping her get her boots and coat on, making myself some breakfast, certain papers that needed to be found and packed up...And there were probably more, but I can't remember them now.

Anyway, the point is that by the time we all finally got out the door, we were already running late. And, to add injury to insult, I smacked the side of my head on the frame of the van door as I was getting into the driver's seat. Hard. I may have used a few "holiday words" in response to the pain, but no one will ever be able to prove that...

Anyway, I got the chiddlers dropped off to their respective before-school sanctuaries and headed to my own class. While on the freeway, I heard a little nagging "ping" and looked down to see a red light on the dash, shaped like a thermometer in some liquid. Overheating, right? Well, I may have used a few more holiday words at that point, but again, no witnesses. Luckily I was within 5 minutes of the next exit, where I knew there was a Chevron station. I finally got pulled in there and popped the hood. My first instinct was to check the oil levels. It was a good thing, too, because it was bone dry. I ran inside and got 3 quarts of oil, and since I'd explained my predicament to the cashier there, he was kind enough to hand me one of those paper funnels. A good thing, too, because in my flustered state I would never have thought of such a thing and probably would have ended up pouring half the oil all over the engine.

Anyway, I got the oil tank filled up, turned on the engine, and the little red light was no longer lit up, so I hurried my little butt down the freeway and got to campus. Where I nearly ran over some poor pedestrian because I was fuming about my lousy morning. After that little adrenaline rush, I parked the car and finally rushed into my class. 10 minutes late. And crabby. Not to mention the fact that the TA who was lecturing didn't have enough material to fill the entire class time, so we got out early. Meaning that after everything I went through to get there, I wasn't even in class for a full hour before I had to turn around and head back home. Just as well, I suppose.

Anyway, as I started driving home, I was just heading up a hill when that friggin' red light pinged at me again. After cursing that stupid light and all the halflings, I turned around, back into town and pulled into another gas station. I checked the oil again, and it was still full. So that's when I considered the coolant levels. (Hey, I don't know a lot about cars, okay?) But I couldn't figure out how to check it. I saw that the canister was just transparent enough to see how full it was, but I couldn't be sure if what I was seeing was the coolant levels, or just dirt. Finally, I called Ty. After consulting with him for a few minutes he finally said: "I'll just come over there and see what's going on. Give me 20 minutes." (Luckily, his workplace is in the same area as where I was.) He came and determined that the coolant levels were indeed quite low, and we went inside and got some coolant and water to fix the problem. He then followed me home, just in case anything more sinister might be going on. Fortunately, there were no further issues, so we got home and went to lunch, since both the kids were in school at the time.

While at lunch, I found out that Ty had been having a pretty crappy day as well. So in calling him to come and rescue me and giving him the chance to leave work early, I had rescued him too. Yay Teamwork!

Anyway, yesterday wasn't as catastrophic as it could have been. Not by a long shot. But it was just filled with a whole lot of little, irritating, exasperating things happening in rapid succession that pretty much made it a really lousy day from the minute I decided to get out of bed.

Have you ever had one of those days?