Just a Situation

Hell of an evening. Kelli called me on the train to say her car had died at the daycare parking lot. I'd planned to spend the evening reviewing for today's child development test, but this meant a change of plans.

Kelli and the kids got a ride home from one of Laura's teachers, and that left me to buzz in there and try to fix it. Connections looked a little dirty, but cleaning didn't help. A jump was no good, nor was tapping on the starter. The light was bad, and it was like trying to work in a wind tunnel as I dug through the manual. I was slightly aggravated, but you know, there's something about being in a situation with no clearcut resolution that I like once in a while. I like the test. I never thoroughly lost my cool, and a handful of calls to Dad helped.

***

Dad, in fact, told me, "This isn't a problem, it's just a situation."

I know where that came from. His friend Mike said that once. I won't go into the specifics, as it's a philosophy born out of Mike's own life challenges, which he faced admirably.

Mike passed several months ago, and in fact, Dad was tending to his grave yesterday. Mr. Broadway is gone, but his perspective was a big help yesterday, and I think he'd be glad for that.

***

Hauled the battery out of Kelli's car this morning and took it to Sears for a diagnosis.

The little guy in the goggles attached cables to it, put in the machine, pulled the cover closed and stood there for five minutes while the machine whirred, clunked and hummed. Finally it stopped and he called me over.

"Look," he said with some surprise in his voice.

There on the screen was the verdict:

"BAD BATTERY."

***

I'd have thought that after such a dramatic display, the machine would have told me something more specific than that, like "it's shorted out," or "one of the cells has gone open."

Or "RUN FOR COVER!"

***

Dropped in the new battery and the car is as good as new.

And since it was already so late, and I still had to take the child dev test, I resigned myself to working only a half day (boo hoo). This meant I had an hour or so at home to study.

I scored a 90. It was a hard test too. The last minute studying made a difference of at least a whole letter grade I'd say.

***

Overheard while having lunch today at Colter's:

"Yeah, Chad and an FBI agent apprehended him at the Texas Arkansas border, so you're off the hook."

Not sure what this was about, but it makes it sound like there's actually a checkpoint from Texas to Arkansas.

***

The great thing about having all of this behind me is that tonight I don't have to do a bloody
thing except park my butt in front of the TV and watch the Rangers' first game of the season. I deserve this.