Tag Archives: car

Mar23

“Be careful! You’re…an idiot!”

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“Be careful! You’re…an idiot!”

I must preface by saying that when I get scared, I am either yell unintelligble sounds (ex: “MEEUGGGGH!  HEMMA, HDIIIDGGG!”) or am overly articulate (ex: “Please be careful of my safety!” or “IMMINENT DOOM!”).

I never know what I’m planning to say, either.  I just…say it.  It’s kind of a stream of consciousness thing.  And yesterday was no exception.

Joey and I were driving home from church listening to CarTalk.  We drove into our parking space just as something really interesting came on.

“I want to hear this!” Joey said, bummed that we were getting out of the car.

“Well, it just started, so if we hurry and get in the house we won’t miss much,” I said.

So, Joey turned off the car and jumped out.  I was moving slower, like usual, in my high heels and, just as I opened my door and put my foot on the ground, I noticed something.  The car was moving.

Then I realized that Joey had forgotten to put the parking break on.

It was one of those situations where my brain ceases to function normally.  I remember thinking, “YELL SOMETHING so he can fix it!” Unfortunately, though, that was as far as my rationality lasted, and what I yelled was,

“BE CAREFUL!  You’re…an idiot!”

Joey, who is used to my semi-articulate terrified exclamations, instantly figured out what was wrong (the car was rolling and I couldn’t stop it) and dove inside to pull the parking break.  Which, when I thought about it later, I could have done too.

“I almost died!” I said.

“Um, no you didn’t,” Joey assured me.  Then, “Do you remember what you yelled?”

“Uhhh….yes,” I said, sheepishly.  “But I don’t really think you’re an idiot.”

“I know,” Joey said.  “But you have to blog about this, so that everyone knows you have Tourettes whenever you get scared.”

“Really?”  I asked.

“Really,” he said.

“But…but then I have to call you an idiot on the interwebs,” I said.  I really didn’t want to.

“Yep,” he said.  Joey was apparently unscathed by my previous insult, and, thus, I have paid my debt and now posted about how I have Tourettes.

At least my version doesn’t make me cuss.

Jan19

CarSpa

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CarSpa

About a year ago as Joey and I were driving north through Oklahoma on the way home to The Iowa for Christmas, I got really hungry for ice cream, so we stopped to pick some up.  I got a hot fudge sundae and Joey got an ice cream cone.

Henry didn’t get anything.

We took our ice cream back to the car, pleased with our sugary purchases, and I strapped myself into the driver’s seat.  Joey leaned into the back seat, holding his ice cream cone, to toss something in, and in the process somehow both he and Henry managed to knock the ice cream off his cone.

“OH NO!” Joey yelled.

“OH MY GOSH!” I shrieked, and immediately began having flashbacks to the time that The Brother spilled milk in the carpet of the red minivan while we were on vacation out on the East Coast when we were kids.  Dad must have sprayed an entire bottle of Woolite into the carpet to try to get the milk smell out, but it was to no avail.  (Not only did it smell like rancid milk, but we all got sick from the Woolite fumes the entire 750 miles we had to drive back to Iowa.)

I began flipping out over the melting ice cream, and the more I flipped the faster it seemed to melt.  Joey and I were sopping it up with napkins and dumping water on it like it was one of those chalk drawings Bert made in Mary Poppins, you know, the ones that washed away with the rain.

The one thing to be thankful for was that it was the dead of winter and it was unlikely that the milk would curdle before we got to The Iowa.  Plus Henry stayed back there for the rest of the trip, licking and licking and licking the carpet (and probably ingesting more carpet fuzzies than is good for any puppy), so we figured he got most of it out.

And when we got to my parents’ house, Pops came blasting out of the house, Woolite in hand, and attacked the problem with a vengeance rarely exhibited except in instances of milk spilled in vehicular carpet.

We thought the problem was taken care of…until summer hit.

The milk curdled.

It smelled like death, and we began to hate going anywhere in our car.

“When the car hits 40,000 miles, we’ll get it detailed,” Joey promised me.

I remember when our car was just a baby and we hit 1,000 miles, so the thought of him finally hitting 40,000 miles made me just a little bit sad, but the spoiled milk spill quickly took the edge off my nostalgia.

“You’re on,” I said.  And then I began going out of my way to add miles to the car so we could hit the magical 40,000 mile mark.

We finally hit it over Christmas.  And we finally had time to take the car to get detailed today.

So for the next hour-and-a-half to two hours I’m sitting here in a fake leather chair waiting for my car to get finished being detailed.  It is going to set us back just pennies shy of $100, but we figure that if it removes the creepy milk smell (which, granted, has faded over the past year) then it’s worth it.

Joey “played hardball” with the sales guy (actually, he didn’t, the sales guy just kept tacking extra packages on “for free” – which seems questionable but I’m not going to argue) and so we’re scoring a fancy wax job and money off the emissions testing, which we had to do anyway.

We brought Season 2 of Friends along, and our headphone splitter, so the 2 hours will probably pass quickly.

I hope.

This chair isn’t really that comfortable.

Here’s hoping we don’t ever, ever spill ice cream on the carpet again.

Oct14

Dost mine eyes deceive me?!

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Dost mine eyes deceive me?!

This morning when Joey and I left our house, the air was dark, heavy and damp, kind of like we were walking around with our heads poking out of a wet sleeping bag.  (Which I’m glad we weren’t.)

“Oh, we’ve gotta go get gas,” Joey mentioned.

We couldn’t put it off, so we hit the 7-11 on Skillman.  We pulled our shiny little Corolla into a spot and Joey began to pump the gas.

“Did you notice the price?” Joey popped his head in the car.

“No…” I said, dreading that it had jumped up to $10 overnight or something.  We fill up probably twice a month, so we don’t pay too close attention to the price fluctuation.

“Go look” he said.  “It’s $3.13.”

“WHAT?” I gasped, and dashed out of the car with my camera.

There it was, in red and white.  Gas was nearing $3.00 a gallon again, and I remember just several months ago paying over $4.00.  The times, they are a changin’.

We filled up our little gas tank for under $40.00 for the first time in…a long, long time.  I had to take a picture.  I mean, check that number out!

Sep30

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Congratulations to The Brother and Laura (aka…The Sister-in-Law?…it’s still a work in progress…) on their new car*!

*This is not their actual car.

*This is not their actual car. It is a picture of a car LIKE theirs. (Same model and color and year and whatever, they just don't have a shed like that to take a picture of their car in front of.)

Aug22

Dad’s New Wheels

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Dad’s New Wheels

Congrats, Pops on FINALLY GETTING YOUR NEW CAR.  Your children breathe a collective sigh of releif!

(That is actually Sister behind the car, not Pops)

(That is actually Sister behind the car, not Pops)

Isn’t my parents front driveway fantastic?!  Ohhhh…..all the trees (Dad has planted over 500 additional ones since we first moved in 15 years ago, I’m not sure how many survived.  Probably 200.  I, um, mowed a lot of them over because they were in my way…) and the Narnia lamppost…and the cows mooing in the backyard…

Back to Dad’s new wheels.

It only took him, like, a year to settle on a car, but we’re very proud of his fortitude and ability to get a great deal.  Nice job, Pops.  I’d totally buy major real-estate from you.  (Although I couldn’t afford it and you wouldn’t want me to.)

May1

YAAAAY!

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YAAAAY!

Joey just clicked the “submit” button on our last car payment. We somehow managed to pay it off three years early (almost to the month) and it feels great.

I remember the day we bought that thing. We had been researching cars for about a month because my poor Saturn smelled really gross, was on his last leg and was due for Majorly Expensive Repairs Beyond The Value of the Vehicle. So, after much debating and test-driving of vehicles, Joey and I headed to Toyota of Des Moines to make the very first large purchase of our married lives.

So, two years later, we finally get to put the title to our vehicle in the safety deposit box with the rest of our important documents. (When we moved to Texas I begged Joey to get a safety deposit box…it just seemed to lend an air of permanence and stability. Mature people have safety deposit boxes at the bank, you know.)

Tomorrow night we’re going to Cheddars to celebrate. Yes, you read that correctly, Cheddars. I was hoping for someplace like La Duni, but Joey was so excited about the prospect of eating at Cheddars, “I’ve never been there and the guys at work say it’s super, super great” were his exact words, that I couldn’t let him down. Plus he’s really cute when he gets himself all worked up.

So…congratulations to us!

Jan31

The Government Is Lame

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The Government Is Lame

We ran out of 1099 envelopes so I was instructed to go find some. They are due today and, in order to be appropriately postmarked, I had to have them in the postbox by 2:30. No problem. I had three hours, it was only 12:30. So I grabbed my keys, forgot my coat, and hit the road, Jack.

My first stop was Office Max. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so I found an employee to help me (who wound up trying to hit on me) but all he could really tell me was that they were sold out. So I went to Best Buy (I know, I know, but I was told they would have some), another Office Max and an Office Depot.

Everyone was sold out of 1099 envelopes. Everyone. There were dozens and dozens of packages of W2 envelopes, though, and they looked disturbingly similar.

But, I reasoned with myself, why would they have a different bar code and item number if they were the same thing? Why would the government streamline if they could make things more complicated?

I decided to risk it. I bought the W2 envelopes.

What do you know – the W2 envelopes are just a tiny bit different than the 1099 envelopes, the windows are slightly further apart. So all that…and I still had to sort of jerry-rig some envelopes in order to get them to the post by 2:30.

I was five minutes late, too…but I think everything will turn out OK in the end.

Dec31

Home Again, Home Again

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Home Again, Home Again

We made ridiculously good time last night driving back from Iowa. After Sister and I sang at my parents’ church (they need to hire Joey in about 3 years…hint, hint) we all headed back to Mom and Dad’s to have a delicious lunch of Christmas Dinner leftovers. Pops got out all the Boundary Waters maps and showed us the potential routes and lakes for our big adventure in August. We’re getting excited.

“We need to leave in 15 minutes,” Joey said as the time for departure grew near.

I continued looking at Boundary Waters maps until Joey said, “Um, it’s past 12:00 and you’re the one making us late this time.” (I usually harass him about being the one to make us late…the tables have turned.) I made a whiny sort of noise in protest, but got up and put my shoes on. Hugs all around and then, with very little incident (aside from running back in the house to steal a box of Mom’s Kleenexes because we’re both sick), we were on our way.

I did not even cry.

“You’re making progress!” Joey praised me as we drove down Center Point Road while Henry tried to climb over the back seat into my lap.

And thus we were drove, very speedily, I might add, down I-35 to Texas. We had calculated at 14 hour drive and figured that if we left at noon on Sunday we’d get there at 2:00 a.m. on Monday. Joey set the cruise at a very high number (which I won’t divulge here) and we drove and drove…and drove and drove.

Because driving through Kansas is my responsibility, I took over at Lawrence when we filled up our tank and didn’t stop until Oklahoma City when the gas light came on. Between the cold air and bright lights, I got a tremendous headache and, since it was Joey’s turn to drive next, I climbed into the back seat to sleep. I am terrible at sleeping in the car.

I woke with a start what seemed to be about 20 minutes later, and I sat up quickly. We were in some kind of city because there were street lights and road signs.

Ardmore? I thought to myself, figuring I’d only been asleep for a little while.

“Where are we?” I asked sleepily.

“Dallas,” Joey replied.

“WHAT?” I gasped, shocked. I glanced at the clock, it read 12:01. “How is that even possible? We’re not supposed to be here until 2:00 a.m.”

“Well…” said Joey, “That’s what happens when you only stop for gas.” I could tell he was relishing his victory in proving to me that, yes, trips go faster when you stop only the bare minimum amount of times.

“Yeah, well, I probably have some kind of infection now because you barely let me go to the bathroom.” I said. I might be sleepy but that really doesn’t make me less feisty.

“Do you actually have to go to the bathroom?” Joey asked me.

“Um, no.” I confessed. “But I hardly drank any water so if I get sick it’s your fault.”

Ten short minutes later, we were home. I have to tell you that it’s dreadful business to unload a car laden with heavy things when all you want to do is go to sleep because you’re tired and sick. As it was we only unloaded the visible things, everything else is still in the trunk. But, we made it the 850 miles from Cedar Rapids to Dallas in a record time of 12 hours and 15 minutes, with only 3 stops for gas and otherwise.

I believe that’s why I’m sitting here with a sinus migraine, fever, and shaky hands. It’s unlikely that I will live to ring in the New Year tonight and, if I actually do, I’ll probably be asleep by 8:30 so it doesn’t really count.

Aug1

So long, farewell?

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So long, farewell?

We think it’s lame for us to have two cars since we leave at the same time in the morning, follow each other down the freeway (we work 2 miles away from each other), and then follow each other home in the evening.

And when we’re not at work, we’re pretty much always together, since we’re Siamese Spouses. We start dying if we’re separated, it’s almost pathetic.

Plus we’d rather carpool to eliminate pollution and save on gas. And it’s much more pleasant to have an extra 30 minutes together every day – it’s like Christmas!

So we’re seriously considering the “selling the Honda” option. Here’s our Honda’s vital statistics:

  • 2001 Honda Accord sedan (And it’s gold, which I think is ugly but Joey always liked)
  • It has 136,000 miles on it
  • It has never been sick or had to go to the doctor
  • We bought it in 2004 from a dealer in Dallas, so it has only suffered through 2 1/2 Iowa winters
  • It has no rust or body damage (Joey made me put that in)
  • It gets 28 mpg in town and 31 on the freeway
  • We want about $6,400 for it

I probably forgot stuff but I don’t get real excited about cars. It has been a good car, though. I like Yoda the Toyota better, so I’m glad we’re keeping it and selling the Honda.

So if you want to buy it from us, you know where to find me. We’ll probably sell it to you.

Jun22

Tag–I’m It! (and you may be too…)

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Tag–I’m It! (and you may be too…)

Muchas gracias to Greg for tagging me.

Welcome to Blogger Tag. I hope this goes better for me than regular tag; I was always too short and slow to ever actually tag anyone when I was It, so I was usually It for about half the game.

These are the rules, which I have blatantly plagiarized from Greg’s blog. (Many sincere thanks.)

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. You may need to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

I shall now commence my 8 random facts. Hold on tight; there’s a reason I’m called The Bad Luck Child.

1.) I once slammed a my best friend’s cat paw in my car door (accidentally!!) when I was stopping by her house to surprise her. It wouldn’t have been so bad had I not locked my keys in the car, no one been home at her house, and the cat was dangling from behind the side view mirror. For an hour. I was also late to work.

2.) My junior year of college I went to Slovakia with my parents. The second day there I went to church with a bunch of people I didn’t know I was very nearly arrested on a bus for accidentally double-punching my bus ticket. (Almost got my passport stolen, too.) In any rate, some very nice man from England bailed me out before I was hauled off to the Slovakian Slammer. And I’m not lying about this either.

3.) I was a camp counselor at EIBC one summer and Kelsie and I decided we were going to be the first girls to hide in the Dumpster during Counselor Hunt. So we did. We wrapped ourselves in trash bags and nestled down in between yesterday’s milk cartons and table scraps. Yum.

About half an hour into it we noticed mice running around behind our backsides and I started getting light-headed from having a trash bag over my head. It was then that I remembered my mother’s words from childhood…”Jenna, don’t put trash bags over your head. It’s dangerous.”

So I ripped myself a big hole to breathe out of and kept the bag on my head. Nobody found us, either. But we smelled HORRIBLE.

4.) My first vehicle was a 1985 Chevy S-10, purchased from Woody S. in 1999. It worked great for awhile…until it started dying on left turns. Not on right turns, just left turns. And not every single time, either, just about 50% of it. It became rather difficult to get places if I had to turn left to get there.

5.) Mom, Dad, a friend and I walked to Tesco one of the weeks we were in Slovakia. I bought chocolate (as usual) and my friend and I were behind Mom and Dad as we leisurely walked back to the church. Suddenly my friend and I were pushed to the wall by about eight gypsies, one of which was trying to slip his hand in my purse and steal my wallet. I happened to look down and see him, so I stomped on his foot, jabbed my elbow into his ribcage and started yelling like an American.

All the gypsies backed off. (He didn’t get my wallet, either.)

My friend and I rushed to catch up with my oblivious parents who said, “Did you hear that bratty child back there whining?” They were chagrined when I told them what had happened.

6.) I went on a blind date in college. (I think the guy’s name was Chris.) Anyway, he talked about how much money his dad made and how they were members at the Country Club the entire duration of dinner while I tried not to yawn. And apparently I bored him equally badly because he fell asleep during the movie we went to see (Charlie’s Angels…). I never went on another blind date again.

7.) One summer in between semesters I was working for my parents doing odd jobs. I spilled an entire gallon of paint on brand-new carpet while painting the halls at one of my dad’s apartment buildings. (I felt so terrible because it had taken us 7 years to convince Mom and Dad to replace the original carpet in those halls and then I go and spill a huge amount of paint on it…) So I called up my poor dad who, to his credit, did not yell at me. He showed up with a Pepsi and a Snickers and stood there, with a hand on my shoulder and said, “Yeah, you spilled a lot of paint…”

They put a rug down over it. And I haven’t spilled paint since.

8.) At Christmas in Indianapolis this year, Joey and I managed to leave our suitcase in in the trunk of our car in Iowa City (we rode with Mom and Dad in their van) and, thus, were without clean underwear for 5 days. I also washed my cell phone while trying to clean the only clothes I had with me. We moved to Texas a week later and I lost my cell phone in a parking lot on a very rainy day. It was picked up by a lady from Plano who got my parents’ phone number, called them, they called me, I called her and we got my phone back.

Only Send, 1 4,7 and * didn’t work any longer. So I took it into the Verizon store, told them it was broken and they gave me a brand new phone.

If any of you made it through all of that, I must say that you have a very strong constitution.

And, thus, I tag…
Sister
Stephen
Joey
Karen H
Sarah M
The Kid

(I’m not doing 8 either, Greg)