The Good The Bad And Brother Michael

As soon as I received the title to my car in the mail last week, I was waiting for the shoe to drop.

Sure enough, last Friday on my way home from work, the car started to make noises like I've never heard before. It was a screeching, grinding, metal on metal sound. All I knew is that it couldn't be good, AND it sounded expensive.

So as not to ruin the weekend, I parked the car in the garage and decided to ignore it for the time being. We just used Ron's van all weekend!

Sunday, Ron was nice enough to pull my car out of the garage, pull the front wheels off and look at the front brakes. He thought that might be the culprit, but my brakes ended up looking just fine. As it was a damn cold day, that was the extent of the driveway car repairs. We finally decided that the car could still be driven, and the easiest solution was to drive myself to work on Monday, and try to get into a garage by the office that is used by some of my coworkers.

I was able to get an appointment to drop my car off on my way to work, so all that was left to do was go to my office and worry if I could pay for the needed repairs. The garage called me less than two hours later and said that all of my tires had been removed, and the all of the brakes have been inspected. All brakes looked just fine and were only down to 60% (whatever the hell that means) so that wasn't my problem. However, he did say that there was dirt in the back brakes. He blew the dirt out of the back brakes and my total was going to be "twenty three thirty five". I said TWENTY THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS???? To which he laughed and said NO! Twenty three DOLLARS and thirty five cents! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have a new best friend!

So my day went from bad to good with that news. I picked my car up that day at lunch time and he's been running great ever since.

Monday evening, Ron and I were going to meet at a restuarant over by Sam's Club since we were planning on doing some shopping there that evening. I called Ron when I was less than 30 minutes away so he'd know when to leave the house. I'm driving along, almost got hit by a car, and then my phone rang. Ron was at the restaurant and checking on my progress. I was a half a block away (how's THAT for timing!), shaking like a leaf from the near collision and would be there soon.

I pulled into the lot and parked next to Ron. Ron came right over to me to hug me. In the middle of a great hug, I hear "oh shit". Trust me, not words a girl wants to hear, especially in a cheek to cheek moment. Ron just realized he locked his van and his keys were still in the ignition. Yes, his day is definitely going from good to bad.

The van was off, the keys were dangling and my set of keys to the van were at home, about seven miles away. I said the heck with dinner, the heck with shopping, I'll just go get his keys and be back shortly. Luckily, he came up with a much better plan B. We called my brother Michael and his wife, who live maybe a mile up the street. We said we're in the neighborhood, having a bad day, come help us salvage it. Believe it or not, they came to our rescue!

Before you knew it, the four of us were seated in the restaurant, enjoying the company and exchanging war stories of the day.

Then it happened. Michael is not called "The Perfect One" for nothing. Suddenly he says "hey, I have Triple A"!! Once again, he saved the day.

Triple A showed up pretty quickly, they broke into Ron's van, got his keys and all was right with our world. And, that all happened before the main course was served!

The day sure had its ups and downs. But thanks Michael and Mary Jane, for making it end on a high note!

After all that, I still need to get to Sam's Club!