... cont'd

So. Just to summarize: I'm flat broke, with a dead battery, semi-out of gas with two little boys- one mercifully sleeping, but only if I can keep the other one (currently screaming) from waking him up, while managing to somehow stay warm and dry and not think about the fact that my stomach is yelling about as loud as he is, since I haven't eaten yet today, either.

I pull him up from the ground to me and we sit under a ledge. Half of me feels like diving right in there with him sobbing in the rain, but my melodramameter starts buzzing- oh wait, that's me shivering because it's DAMN ARCTIC all of a sudden, and all I've got on is jeans, a t-shirt and some fresh boogers and tears. At least they were warm. Jeez. Now I know I'm a mom.

So I pull us into the car, and try to invent quiet, front-seat only games for the next hour. Luckily, my profession leads me to have as extensive training and preparation for this. This holds us for about 45 minutes. After an hour, I finally start dissecting the car for loose change, resolute to find a payphone somewhere. It turns out not many people walk by the bank on a day when it's closed and there's sudden torrential downpour. Imagine that. I know there are payphones a block up, and, not knowing anything else to do and no longer content to just hope someone might actually show up, I tell Tobin not to open the doors for ANYone and I'll let him drive for a little while, while Mommy comes RIGHT back.

"But if you leave, I will be all lonely! That's not very good!" he says. I know he's right, but there's not a single other thing I know to do at this point but stand at that payphone and dial every number I can remember collect until someone answers. Luckily, I also found Tobin's frog umbrella in the backseat, so I try to fit as much of my body as possible under and into it, kiss Tobin, shut the door and start running like a crazy woman. (carefully, mind you, since the pavement is nice and slick) Most of you are probably aware of my feelings towards coldness and water and the combination of the two. Not happy.

But, halfway up the block, I find a couple hovering with coffee under a ledge. I tell them my situation, and he says he has AAA, and he'll give them a call. Happy Happy Joy Joy, Happy Happy Joy Joy! I don't know if my face was wet from tears or rain at that point, but I am pretty sure I saw the clouds open up, a beam oflight gently caress his head and little trumpeting angels float down from the sky and circle, like when Sylvester gets hit with an anvil. I decide not to tell him what I saw, since some people get squirmy if you tell them there are little beings flitting about their head playing the Hallelujah Chorus. Instead, I thank him profusely and go to wait in the car with Tobin, who has miraculously damaged nothing in my absence. Perhaps a stray angel from AAA Guy ran over and cleaned the whole thing before I got there, because I'm pretty sure it couldn't have happened otherwise.

Thirty minutes or so later (we're 2 1/2 hours into this, now) the tow truck comes. (this must have been where the stray angel called for backup)First, he tells me it's the gas, then the battery, then the starter. Turns out it was a little of all three. A nice little combo pack of lovliness for me. *BUT* eventually, he started it and I was on my way, three hours into it. Snappy.

I got home, got Tobin down and brought Aiden directly to Sthstheee! since that's his first word every time we walk through the front door, anyhow. I go upstairs to find my roommates watching a movie. Juuuust chillin', nice and warm, eating popcorn, hanging out. Trying my hardest to smother my dagger-shooting fire-breathing powers, I gently explain my ever-lasting loathing for each of their black and twisted souls for not answering the phone or checking the machine the times I called. Then I  go in my room, shut the door, and collapse into a heap. If I didn't think tobacco was a direct link between man and eeeevil, this is the part where I would need a cigarette. Instead, I made some tea and proceeded to stare at the wall, warm like I'd wanted to be all along.

quote for the day: ""He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough." Lao-Tzu