The day I kneeled (knelt?) on asphalt, in a dress

I think I should do one more “weird” post to make it an even three. This time I’ll talk about how the universe conspired with the fates to serve me up a humongous dish of embarrassment. Yes, this experience embarrassed me, whereas the previous post did not. Go figure.

Well one Sunday I ended up going to church by myself while the Husband stayed home with our sickie kids. This was probably the first time I’d gone to church by myself in a long time. For one, if the kids are sick I usually stay home, but I had a class to teach. For two, I rarely go anywhere by myself because I hate doing things alone. For three, the husband usually drives because I hate being behind the wheel. But for some reason, this day was the day I had no one else with me. This day of all days. Anyway, I digress.

I went to churchie church, and actually thoroughly enjoyed not having to tame two kids the whole time. I left feeling uplifted and edified. The sun was shining as I walked out to my car to head home. Glory be. I’m thinking about what I should eat for lunch and wondering if the Husband is passed out on the floor yet, as I back up the car, shift the car into drive and slowly start cruising out of the parking lot. After deciding that I would not be mad at the Husband even though the house was surely a mess, without any warning at all, my car loses all power and comes to a stop. It’s on total lockdown. It won’t start. It won’t go into neutral. It won’t do anything. Then this deep guttural gurgling sound starts coming from the innards of my car, a gurgle that soon becomes a full on car alarm squeal, a car alarm that we didn’t even know our car had. We bought it from a private owner. He never said anything about an alarm. We didn’t even have one of those key-chain button thingies to turn off the alarm. So for some reason unbeknownst to me, my car thinks I’m trying to steal it, and refuses to budge, and the wailing is piercing the calm Sunday afternoon silence. I’m also blocking a few cars that are trying to back-up and go along their merry way.

If there’s anything in this world that gets me flustered, it’s being the cause of blocking someone from going to grandma’s house for Sunday lunch. I was seriously at a loss as to what I should do too because the car was doing everything in its power to keep me from driving it to my secret chop shop and stripping it for parts.

Obviously at this point I had attracted some attention, not the kind of attention I would ever desire though. Luckily, everyone was fresh from being spiritually fed so their hearts were filled with charity. If this had happened on a Wednesday on the side of a busy road I shudder to think of the outcome. But someone was looking out for me I guess. If your car has to go all kung fu crazy on you, then Sunday in a church parking lot is probably the best possible situation.

Men, of the gentlemen variety, descended upon me and the car, eager to fix the problem. Bless men and their desire to fix things. While I called the Husband hoping he would have the answer as how to disarm the squawking, a half dozen men were under the car hood messing around with wires and such. They asked me questions like “Do you have the key chain thing to disarm?” “No”, I said, “I don’t have one, and I didn’t even know the car had an alarm.” This is when they look at me like I’m a crazy ditzy redhead. The Husband is trying to tell me where some wires are under the dashboard, but have you ever looked deep under your dashboard? There are tons of wires, so him trying to explain it to me was pointless since I really couldn’t hear him over the alarm anyway. But I tried to follow his instructions, getting under the dashboard, while wearing a dress. It was probably a sight to see. So sorry if you missed it, but if you happened to drive by me that day just know that I don’t usually do things like this in a dress, let alone ever.

Eventually, the gentlemen, in their suits and ties, convinced the car that it wasn’t being stolen, and to let them drive it to my house while I hitched a ride from a kind neighbor. The whole episode left me frazzled and even more determined to never do anything by myself again. The car and I are now back on speaking terms, but I don’t think I can ever really have trust. See. Even my car is weird.

On a side note: The Husband wants me to make clear that he eventually fixed the problem with the car. I would also like to make clear that this event is probably the funniest thing in the world to him. He still has the message saved on the phone where I’m telling him to pick up the dang phone (while the car alarm is blaring in the background).

So glad my boys like to fix things, even if it does expose their Elmo underwear.