Seriously

At the end of a long day yesterday, while I was running an errand, the emissions light came on in my dashboard (the bright red light on the left in the photo). The owner's manual handily pointed out that I should "take the car to be serviced as soon as possible."

Okay, hi. Let's review. I've spent the previous 24 hours draining water from my basement and figuring out what to do with the increasingly funky smell that basement bilge leaves behind. And now I've got car trouble.

I arrange for a friend to pick me up and we drop my car off at the Saturn dealer last night. That same friend kindly brings J.T. and I to school this morning. Once there, I call to confirm that Saturn has received my car and will check things out. "Yup," they say, "we'll be in touch."

At noon, and not a little anxious, I called Saturn. "We'll check out your car soon," they report.

At 3:30, now increasingly frantic that I will be without my trusty steed for the rest of the day, I call again. "The mechanic is looking at it now," they inform me.

I arrange for another friend to bring me and the sassafras boy home from school. And then I find a third friend to bring us back to school tomorrow. Missions accomplished, I wait for the nice people at Saturn to call me.

At 5:30, my phone rings. It's Anthony from Saturn. "We still can't tell what the problem is", he says, "we'll need to keep the car until tomorrow."

And what choice do I have? I'm home and there is homework to be supervised, a workout to schedule, and supper to be made. And then there's the pesky matter of 40 gallons of water needing to be sucked out of the basement (but hey, the fill-rate is sharply dropping). So I tell Anthony at Saturn that I've got nothing but time.

And I settle in to wait, with great hope that the week can only get better, and with even greater gratitude to the kind friends who graciously helped me out. Again.