Or they really don't want me to go to work. Or possibly I have really bad car juju in addition to bad traffic light juju.
Last Monday (the 10th), my car overheated on the way to work. All I had in the car liquid-wise was a 6 pack of Coke bottles and some cans of Ginger Ale so I had to call my dad to drive over and help. We work in opposite directions so it was about a 40 minute wait but that gave the car some time to cool down. We added 3 quarts of water to the radiator. There's a leak, apparently, but it doesn't seem to be in the radiator.
This Monday I have issues again. I'm heading out to work on time. I step out the door juggling my purse, laptop bag, bag with lunches for the week and a open can of soda. It's pouring down rain. Luckily, I have a small umbrella in my laptop bag after having to walk out to the car in the rain the month before because all my umbrellas were in the car. It takes 2 trips to get everything into the car.
To set the scene, we have a flag lot. The driveway is around 600 feet long. The middle section is wooded and about a foot wider than a UPS truck.
I get around Dad's car (he had taken the van that day (Yes, I live at home, and no, I don't care what your opinion of that is.)) and get to the first blind curve. There is a giant Asplundh truck blocking the drive with the top of palm tree hanging by a rope from the boom. The crew is apparently in the truck waiting out the rain. I honk a few times to get their attention. It takes them 10 minutes to get to the point where they can get moving. Once I'm out of the drive, I call my boss to let her know I'll be late. This part of the day could have been avoided if the Asplundh guys had come up to the house before they started to say they would be blocking us in.
On my way home that night, I'm driving down a unlit country road. I get past one of the unincorporated towns where the road goes from 2 lane to 4 lane divided, and get into the right lane because I'm planning on turning right where it Ts into a main road to get gas. I have a car in the left lane next to me. I see a sheriff's car up ahead of me making a U-turn and glance down at my speedometer. No, I wasn't actually speeding then. When I look back up, there is shrubbery in the road ahead of me, three foot tall shrubbery. I manage not to wreck the car after hitting it and have just started getting control back when there's another piece. When I pull into the gas station, I have to yank out a 3 foot long branch of live oak. Apparently, it just looked like shrubbery at night and was actually good sized tree branches.
There weren't any car parts dangling but I thought there might be more tree wedged under the car. With the way it drug down the driveway, I fairly confident. I had to get Dad to get it out because I couldn't. That branch was 2 foot long and over an inch thick.
Now we get to today. I drove 45 minutes this morning to have a doctor's appointment before work. It was going to be a tight squeeze to make it in in time. I get lost on the way to the appointment because there is no name or number on the building. I still got there early though. I had my oh so fun ultrasound which I'm a little sore over.
I'm heading 3 exits up the interstate to work (the interstate I almost never drive on) when the car overheats as I reach my exit. I pull off at the exit and while I'm on the exit ramp the power steering goes. Sounds like a great day so far, doesn't it?
I call my boss to let her know then call Dad. He thinks it might be a belt that went for the power steering. The overheating is the same problem from last week which he said he would fix for me. I call my boss back and she agrees to come pick me up since I'm less than 10 minutes from work. While I wait, I have the choices of overheating myself waiting in the car or being swarmed by lovebugs outside the car. I went with swarmed. Standing back from the car, waving off lovebugs, something crawls up my pants and bites me on the upper thigh. I don't know what it was because of how squashed it was when I crushed it but it was the size of my thumbnail. And, yes, it was kind of funny having to pull my pants down to check by the side of the road. Now that's kind of achy but I cleaned it off with sanitizing wipes once I got to work.
This has made me a firm believer in strangers who want to help though. The first Monday, I had a sheriff's deputy stop to check on me and a nice gentleman in a truck stop and offer to help. Today a lovely lady in a white sedan stopped to check on me.
