Monday, June 11, 2007

My Great Day of Futility!

I left the house this morning with a wonderful sense of purpose. I had my To-Do List (complete with contributions from my lovely wife) and a plan for how I was going to get it all done.

Come to find out, I should have just stayed in bed and called in sick!

2 miles from Eastland (100 miles west of Fort Worth) my perfect plan flew out the window!



This is what you call a blowout!

D'oh!

An 8-inch gash on the bottom, a 5-inch gash on the top and no earthly idea of how it happened! But, if I may say so myself, thanks to some pretty impressive driving skills I was able to contain the gashes to the tire and not the rest of my car!

But no problem, right? Just throw on the spare, buy a new tire in Eastland and I'm probably only 2 hours behind schedule at the most!

If only the jack that came with my car was able to raise my car high enough to put the spare on! Oh yeah! I jacked that thing up as high as it would go and I still needed another 3 inches before I could bolt on the spare!

D'oohhh!

So, I spent another hour and a half on the side of I-20 dodging shoulder-hugging 18-wheelers and waiting for Roadside Assistance (our corporate AAA) to bring a bigger jack! So much for being only 2 hours behind.

Nevertheless, around 1:30 I was rolling again and thinking that if I could get a new tire pretty quick in Eastland then I could probably still salvage part of the afternoon. Too bad the only tire store in town didn't have my size tire . . . "But we can have it here for you by tomorrow morning!"

D'oh! D'oh! D'oh!

The closest store that had the tire I needed was a Firestone in Brownwood about 45 minutes away. OK - I can do that! I'll drive to Brownwood - buy a new tire - see a couple docs and be on my way home! Too bad the Firestone had about 20 people ahead of me by the time I got there!

D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! D'oooohhhhhh!

Finally around 4:30 I headed home from Brownwood having not seen any doctors because I had to wait so long at Firestone. By the way, is there anything more pointless than reading a Car & Driver Buyer's Guide from 3 years ago?

10 hours, 300 miles and no doctors after I left this morning, I finally pulled back into my driveway. Totally beaten. Totally exhausted. Totally ready for this day to be over and done with. I should have gone straight to the bed that I should have never gotten out of in the first place . . . but I didn't!

I thought Macy and I could use some fresh air so I decided we'd go run some errands together. But between putting Macy in the backseat and walking around to my door I somehow locked my keys in the car . . . with Macy in the back seat!

D'(Not very nice words spewing from my mouth!)oh!

When will this day end?!?!?!

Once I regained my composure, I called Roadside Assistance (again!) and about 45 minutes later some guy showed up and popped the lock on my car in about 20 seconds - literally! I could have sworn Macy shot me a glare as she jumped out of the back seat!

Poor Macy - nobody remembered her birthday and then she was locked in the back seat of a car!

I'm going to bed now but I'm going to be very careful. With my luck, I could be severely injured by my electric toothbrush and have to be taken to the Emergency Room by ambulance only to find out that the dentist on-call had a blowout on the way to the hospital!

PS: Does it bother anyone that there's a guy out there who's really good at popping car locks in less than 20 seconds?

(I'll do QOTW when I regain cognitive function!)

8 comments:

Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...

D'(Not very nice words spewing from my mouth!)oh!

Sorry to read about the tough day, Wade. That gash is impressive. I have experienced that problem with the standard car jack being too small, as well. This issue is something which should be fixed by the auto industry.

Russ

Susan @ Blessed Assurances said...

Oh now that just flat sucks

Hope the rest of the week is better

Jill said...

At least it wasn't Tate you locked in the car. I did that once when Quinn was a baby. I was sitting there in the grocery store parking lot crying and he was in the car laughing and waving. LOL

And thank God you got to the side of the road and weren't in an accident. I hope tomorrow is a better day! :)

laura said...

Good gracious... you had way more than your fair share! Not that this helped in this situation... but should you find yourself in need of quicker assistance at the Firestone in Bwd... try asking for Morris Horton. He's one of our good friends and mission committee members from Austin Avenue... couldn't hurt to try and see if he can get you out quicker :) But seriously I hope you don't have to find out :)

Keri said...

Those are the kinda days where you just crawl in bed and pray that the saying "It could have been worse!" doesn't ring true for the following day.

Pearson Family said...

Now, that is one bad day! I hope today is better!

Laura Scott said...

Bummer! Sorry, hope today was better!

Wade said...

Hey Russ,

That's good to know. I thought I had to be doing something wrong to keep the jack from working the way it was supposed to.

I also can't stand how the auto-makers use those little donut spare tires. Why can't they just put a full size spare in the trunk?
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Hey Suz,

"Oh now that just flat sucks

Yeah, it sure let the air out of my day!
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Hey Jill,

"At least it wasn't Tate you locked in the car.

I actually thought of that while waiting on the locksmith. I wouldn't have hesitated one second to bust out the side window to get him out. Unfortunately for Macy, I first needed to see her start to faint before I would do anything - ha!

Because of this incident though I think I'm going to make sure I have my keys in my hand at all times. I have a bad habit of just tossing them up in the front seat when I putting Tate into his seat.

Not anymore!
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Hey Laura,

I remember Morris - he was there although he wasn't the guy helping me. I think everybody in that town knows each other! I'm gonna start name-dropping your name everywhere I go just to see what else it can get me!

The next time I'm at Underwood's I'm gonna yell out, "I know Laura Bull!" and then watch everyone snap to attention!
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Hey Keri,

When I did finally get to bed I thought to myself, "Finally! It's over!" Then, knowing there was still an hour until Midnight, I got worried that I might have just jinxed myself and then started thinking about all the bad things that could happen to me while lying in bed!

Thank goodness though nothing did happen!
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Hey Paige & Laura S,

Thanks - Today was a much better day!