Something Crazy

Last Thursday (April 9) was our stake temple night. Things have been a little wild around here lately—you know, demolition, construction, Michael got a mission call with only three weeks notice to get ready, Bruce's dad is re-marrying soon, we got a new van, Bruce still works in Vernal, and I had plans to drive out there with the boys on Friday the 10th... Just a few little things going on. Still, I did want to go to the temple on the 9th; I was planning on it.

But as the day was coming up I started to wonder if I really wanted to go by myself; I had to weigh that against how much I wanted to go anyway. And I had pretty much made up my mind to go. Then Melanie called me Thursday morning and asked if I was planning to go to the temple that night; she didn't want to go by herself either. So I said yes, I was going. I would definitely go with her that evening "unless something crazy happened."

That Thursday morning I had to drive Brandon and Ryan and the rest of their carpool to school, which I did with no incident. I came home, had breakfast, cleaned my bedroom—the usual stuff. Then, at 2:20 I went to pick everyone up and take them home. The van drove about twelve of the 12.3 miles to the school, and then the radio started cutting out. Oh well.  And then the turn signals quit working. And then I couldn't roll up the windows.  Weird.  I pulled into a parking space to wait for all the kids to come out and get in the van, but once they were there the van wouldn't start again. It didn't even make a sound like it wanted to start. Oh, man!

I called one of the carpool dads (Jason) to see if he could come get us, and then went into the school to tell them that my van might be parked there until Saturday (when Bruce would be home to look at it). But there was someone at the school with a battery-charger/jump-starter thing, and he came out to see if he could get the van started for us. It worked! Yay! I called Jason back and let him know that he didn't need to rescue us after all—with the provision that he'd be on call if the van died again.

Well, we loaded up the kids and headed for home. Since I had to drop the carpool kids off at their homes, I had now about 17.5 miles to drive.  But the van was acting extremely wimpy, and none of the gauges or lights were working, and I was pretty worried. So we're driving along and coming up to a traffic light, and I'm saying, "Green! Stay green!" or, "Turn green now!" as we approached each one, because I could feel the van hesitating, and losing power by the second, and I was pretty sure that if it stopped it wouldn't want to go again. Sure enough, each time we stopped I had to press the pedal to the floor to get it to creep up to speed. And let me tell you, driving a car that you fear will die on you at any minute is a pretty horrible feeling.

Well, we got our first girl dropped off all right, but the van was getting weaker and weaker. We made it to about half a mile away from the next kids' house and then it went. Dead. So I called their mom (Jenne) and asked her to come jump-start the van. And there we were, on a major road, parked in the middle of the right-hand lane. I couldn't even turn on my hazard lights because the battery was totally dead. I did get out and open up the hood, and had the kids get out and stand around on the sidewalk so maybe other drivers would see that we had a problem. Still, people were driving by and honking and yelling at me (because they were toads. I mean, really! Did they think I just parked my van there because I thought it would be neat?). And after my nerve-wracking drive, their kind, helpful, friendly attitudes were not very soothing.

Jenne came and gave us a jump-start and took her kids home, and my van barely limped home, on it's very last, dying breath. I had Brandon ask the neighbor to help him get the battery out of the old van and put it into the new van while I went into the house to get ready to go to the temple with Melanie. This carpool trip that should have taken about 1 1/2 hours total, took me a tense 2 1/2 hours to complete. I was super stressed out, and bawled in the shower for a while, but I was getting ready to go to the temple.

old van

new van

It wasn't until later that I remembered telling Melanie that I'd go with her that night—unless something crazy happened. Hm. I think it happened. But I still went. 

EPILOGUE:  I was glad I made it to the temple. It was nice to be with Melanie, and talk out our stresses on the drive there. And it was really nice to be in the temple—especially after the craziness.

Everyone I talked to—the teacher who got the van started in the parking lot, the neighbor who helped change the battery, Bruce, and the guy at Auto Zone—said we'd probably need to change the alternator. >sigh< How were supposed to afford that?  Then Bruce reminded me that we had a spare van to get an alternator from. (No, I didn't think of this myself, even though I had thought to use the battery from the old van just the other day.) So he planned to at least start the Alternator Switcheroo Job before he headed out to Vernal today, but wasn't sure whether he could finish it before he had to leave—which would leave me without a car for a couple of weeks. But then our good friend, Ken Johnson (who is also our bishop), called and offered to come over and help Bruce. I can not tell you how great it felt to have someone care, and come to help us. And they got it done pretty quickly. Yay!

So I am glad to have a working vehicle again. And I am glad that I made it to the temple. And I am so very glad for good friends. Despite a lot of craziness in my life these days, tonight I am glad.