From the Heart
“Janet and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”
So I borrowed the title from a children’s book first published in 1972. The title character was Alexander, not Janet.
On Tuesday of this week I found myself caught up in a very bad day … before noon.
As I headed out to have coffee (a.k.a. therapy) with my bestie, Patrice, I attempted to start my car. It cranked but would not fire.
I pulled the hood release. The hood was frozen shut.
Wonderful.
Patrice rescued me and off we went to enjoy some coffee while she allowed me to whine.
My husband, who also let me whine, took me to work. I grabbed a car off the lot. I needed to check on my mom so I headed to Prairie Lakes where she informed me that her electric wheelchair was not holding its charge.
Lovely.
This was like taking the keys away from her independence in getting around her new place. I made a call to the service department where we got her chair. They assured me that they would call me back by the end of the day.
While I was talking to my mother, my grandson, Matt, called to let me know his furnace was not working. He lives in my mother’s house.
Oh my goodness.
It was not yet noon. I was oh-so-close to having a “come apart.”
My car had to be towed. It was a fuel pump driver module. The hood finally thawed.
Matt’s furnace problem was a gas valve issue, not the circuit board as first suspected. It took three trips to diagnose and find the right part. He slept at our house after losing the argument that he would be fine sleeping in a cold house. It was 46 degrees in the house, single digits outside.
Mom is being sent a new battery for her “buggy” as she calls it. It took another call the next day to get someone to help me. Somehow, they forgot(?) to call me back to troubleshoot the problem.
I survived that terrible Tuesday. It was not a good day to have a very bad day.
One really good thing happened that day … it made for an easy column to write this week.